Trump vs the 14th Amendment: What is Birthright Citizenship, and Does India Have It?

In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that children born in the US to parents who are illegally present or on temporary visas would not automatically receive American citizenship. The order triggered legal challenges that have now reached the Supreme Court, where both conservative and liberal justices have questioned whether the executive branch can redefine citizenship unilaterally.

Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. This is the bedrock of jus soli — citizenship by place of birth. Trump's order interprets the 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' clause narrowly to exclude children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders, a reading most constitutional scholars reject.

India follows jus sanguinis — citizenship by descent. The Citizenship Act, 1955 has been amended twice in ways that progressively restricted territorial birth rights: the 1986 amendment required at least one parent to be an Indian citizen; the 2003 amendment added that neither parent should be an illegal migrant. Since 2004, birth in India alone confers no automatic citizenship.

Jus soli (right of the soil) grants citizenship based on place of birth and is followed by the US, Canada, and most of Latin America. Jus sanguinis (right of blood) grants citizenship by descent from citizen parents and is followed by India, Germany, Japan, and most of Europe. The global trend has been a shift away from unconditional jus soli toward hybrid or jus sanguinis models.

India's 2003 amendment, the CAA 2019, and the NRC exercise all reflect a jus sanguinis-aligned policy that privileges documented lineage over territorial birth. The US debate echoes many of the same demographic and sovereignty arguments India engaged with in the early 2000s.