OPINION:
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether a child born in the U.S. to an illegal immigrant automatically receives U.S. citizenship (“birthright citizenship”). The outcome is easily determined by the sole U.S. Supreme Court decision on the subject: United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898).
The deciding factor in that case was that at the time of the child’s birth, his parents had “a permanent domicile and residence” in the U.S. The court ruled that “a child born in the United States, of parents [who] have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States … becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.”
By definition, people who enter the U.S. illegally and are subject to deportation at any time do not and cannot have a “permanent domicile and residence” in this country, and their children cannot become American citizens as a result of the parents’ unlawful entry.
MARK RUTZICK
Reston, Virginia
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