Whether to continue automatically conferring U.S. citizenship to the children born in this country to unauthorized immigrants suddenly emerged as a dividing line among Republican presidential candidates last week. In all the controversy over Donald Trump’s latest flaming salvo, there has been virtually no discussion of the economic reasons for or against birthright citizenship.
Birthright citizenship originated in the United States in response to the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared that African-Americans were not U.S. citizens. In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution declared that all people born in the country are U.S. citizens. The Supreme Court has since ruled that this applies even to the children of people illegally present in the country.
Because the U.S. has had birthright citizenship for so long, there is no direct evidence here on its costs or benefits. However, there is evidence from Germany, which in 2000 began offering birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants if at least one parent has legally resided in Germany for at least eight years. Of course, this is not exactly analogous to the issue in the U.S., which concerns parents here illegally. Nevertheless, Germany’s population of legal immigrants from Turkey is in many other ways comparable to our population of Latino immigrants. Both populations have relatively low levels of education, low levels of fluency in the host country language and high fertility rates, for example.
The German experience shows clear benefits from granting birthright citizenship to immigrants’ children. Research by Ciro Avitabile, Irma Clots-Figueras and Paolo Masella shows that children who benefited from the policy had better noncognitive skills and better health outcomes. When they reached secondary school, the children were less likely to be on the lowest academic track. Their mothers began having fewer children, enabling them to devote more resources per child. Further, their parents became more integrated into German society and learned more German.
The main cost of birthright citizenship is the potential fiscal burden posed by the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants. Unauthorized immigrants are ineligible for virtually all means-tested transfer programs, with the notable exception of the federal child tax credit if they file taxes. But their U.S.-born children are eligible for welfare benefits if their family meets the criteria. However, such children are believed to be less likely than other children to apply for benefits because their families fear that interacting with the government will lead to the parents’ deportation. Eliminating birthright citizenship for unauthorized immigrants’ children therefore may not save as much money as proponents might believe.
Eliminating birthright citizenship is also unlikely to have a large impact on the number of children born here to people who are not legally present in the U.S. The number of “birth tourists” – people who come to the U.S. for the main purpose of giving birth here – is believed to be only about 8,000 a year. The number of children born each year to unauthorized immigrants who live here is much larger, about 300,000 per year, but the evidence from Germany suggests that unauthorized immigrants might actually have more children here if birthright citizenship were eliminated.
Unauthorized immigrants don’t have children here because those children can receive welfare benefits or because they can sponsor their parents for a green card. (The latter can’t even happen until the child is 21 years old, so that would be some impressive patience.) They have children here because they want them to be Americans. The U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants symbolize their parents’ American dreams. They came for the opportunity to work hard and in return have a better life, for themselves and especially for their children.
For more than two centuries, the United States has been a beacon of hope and prosperity to the rest of the world. Denying people born here the right to fully participate in American society goes against the very foundations of this country and would lead to worse socioeconomic outcomes for those children and their parents. Doing so would certainly not help make America great again — or, for those of us who already think it’s pretty darn good, keep it great.
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