Birthright Citizenship

Since my mother died in 2020, I have been in possession of her first passport - actually my grandmother's Italian passport from 1929, which included my mother and two of her older siblings. The title page reads (my translation): In the name of His Majesty Victor Emmanuel III, by the grace of God and will of the nation, King of Italy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs grants this passport to Signora Nunzia Orlando [my grandmother], wife of Francesco Bonaccorso [my grandfather], with her children Virginia and Salvatore and the foreign child Carmelina [my mother].

Francesco and Nunzia Bonaccorso had first immigrated to the U.S. in 1920 with Virginia and Salvatore and three older children.  In 1922, my mother was born here in New York and was thus, by birth, according to the provisions of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution a natural-born U.S. citizen. Soon after, while the three older children stayed in New York to work, my grandparents and their three younger children returned to Italy. from which they finally returned to New York in 1930. Immigration was difficult after 1924, but my "foreign child" mother's American birthright citizenship made it easier to reunite the family in the U.S. Thank you, Birthright Citizenship!

Among the many mischiefs being contemplated by the incoming Administration is an attempted attack on the constitutional principle of birthright citizenship. Yet the authors of the 14h Amendment (adopted 1868), left no ambiguity about the Amendment's citizenship provision: 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 provision overruled the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision (1857) that African-Americans were not and could not become U.S. citizens. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had granted citizenship to all people born in the United States if they were not subject to a foreign power, and this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was obviously intended to constitutionalize this provision permanently. Subsequent jurisprudence has clearly affirmed that this clause applies to all children of non-citizens born in the United States under any circumstance. 

A direct assault on birthright citizenship (presumably by executive order) would, of course, be challenged in the courts. While the jurisprudence is clear, the Trump Supreme Court is now known for its notorious indifference to legal precedents. We will have to wait and see, possibly at the cost of considerable social disruption and personal suffering in many immigrant families.

Photo: 1929 Passport photo of my grandmother Nunzia Orlando Bonaccorso and her three younger children, my uncle Salvatore, my aunt Virginia, and the youngest, my American-born mother. Carmelina (Camille).