Trump says birthright citizenship was about 'babies of slaves.' Experts disagree

President Donald Trump has stated that birthright citizenship — which his administration is trying to overturn in court — was originally intended for a narrow group of people: the children of slaves.

But multiple experts disagree, arguing that, from the very beginning, the legal principle was meant to apply far more broadly.

“Birthright Citizenship is about the babies of slaves,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on May 15. “It had to do with Civil War results, and the babies of slaves who our politicians felt, correctly, needed protection.”

“It had nothing to do with Illegal Immigration for people wanting to SCAM our Country, from all parts of the World, which they have done for many years,” the president added.

His comments came hours before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case on Trump’s January executive order, which sought to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas.

Here is what experts have to say about Trump’s recent comments on birthright citizenship.

Original purpose of birthright citizenship

Birthright citizenship is a longstanding legal principle enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which was passed by Congress in 1866, following the end of the Civil War.

Section 1, known as the Citizenship Clause, states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

This was passed — as the president pointed out — largely to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their children.

It directly overturned the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which “held that all African-Americans, not just those enslaved, could not be United States citizens because of their race,” Darrell Miller, a professor at the University of Chicago School of Law, told McClatchy News.

“Of course the primary concern of the 14th Amendment was slaves and their descendants. Nobody denies that,” Paul Gowder, a professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, told McClatchy News.

However, he and other experts said the drafters of the amendment clearly intended it to have a broader application.

Where’s the proof of this?

For one, it’s plain from the language of the amendment itself, Martha Jones, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University, told McClatchy News.

“Congress wrote the amendment by terms that expressly provided for all persons born in the United States, as the language of the Amendment reflects,” Jones said.

Moreover, during debates at the time, some lawmakers explicitly referred to other groups of people to whom birthright citizenship should apply.

“The drafters … said many times that the Citizenship Clause applied to virtually all children, not just the ‘babies of slaves,’” Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, told McClatchy News.

“Questions were raised about the children of Chinese people or the children of Gypsies, and the answer was always the same: they are all born citizens,” Magliocca said.

For example, California Sen. John Conness said during a debate, “The proposition before us … relates simply … to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. ... I am in favor of doing so.”

Members of Congress were also precise about groups of people who were not included.

“Lawmakers considered there to be two narrow exceptions: children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats and children born to members of occupying armies,” Jones said.

However, not all experts agree the amendment’s authors intended it to have such an expansive reading.

Kurt Lash, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, told McClatchy News the “subject to the jurisdiction” line in the Citizenship Clause was meant to exclude those who “lack sufficient allegiance to the United States.”

To his point, Michigan Senator Jacob Howard argued at the time that the amendment “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners…”

This, however, “is not a widely held interpretation,” Gowder said, contending that immigrants — unlike diplomats or foreign invaders — “are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. just like citizens are.”

Later rulings on birthright citizenship

Since the amendment was passed, the Supreme Court has issued several rulings clarifying the breadth of birthright citizenship.

“The Court in 1884 (Elk v. Wilkins) later confirmed that Native Americans who were born subject to the jurisdiction of their sovereign tribes were not citizens by birthright,” Jones said.

This, though, was superseded by the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, which granted birthright citizenship to all non-citizen Native Americans born within the U.S.

And, in 1898, the high court ruled that children born in the U.S. to non-citizen immigrants were indeed birthright citizens, Miller said.

As a result, “Today, anyone born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen, no matter their race, no matter their ancestry, no matter their politics,” Miller said.

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