Should U.S. Citizenship Be Heritable?

In the midst of ongoing debates on immigration, Republicans are now taking aim at a new issue that is sparking controversy: birthright citizenship. The past few weeks have seen several key Republicans publicly challenge a key American ideal enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment: that all persons born in the US are citizens. Here’s a brief roundup:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R – SC): “I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here. . . . Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake ...  We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): "There is a problem. To provide an incentive for illegal immigrants to come here so that their children can be U.S. citizens does, in fact, draw more people to our country. . . . "I do think that it's time for us to secure our borders and enforce the law and allow this conversation about the 14th Amendment to continue. . . . "In certain parts of our country, clearly our schools, our hospitals are being overrun by illegal immigrants -- a lot of whom came here just so their children could become U.S. citizens."

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ): “The question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?”

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL): "I don't think the founders understood when they did the 14th amendment that they would create a circumstance where people could fly into America, all over the world and have a child and that child would have dual citizenship, fly back to their home countries.  . . . It has been clearly abused."

All of this leads to an interesting question: if not birthright, what should be the basis of citizenship? While countries certainly differ in their criteria, Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell suggests that Republicans’ attempt to shift the emphasis from birth location to the citizenship status of the child’s parents implies that citizenship should somehow be heritable -- what Harris-Lacewell calls a “genetic grandfather clause.” She argues that this concept is fraught with eugenic overtones:

Harris-Lacewell makes a provocative argument that has particular resonance given the eugenic sensibilities embedded in past immigration restrictions. This issue is worth keeping an eye on as the debate goes forward.