In the name of halting unauthorized immigration, some political leaders in France and the United States want to reconfigure the right to citizenship for people born on their soil. This month, the French government unveiled a plan to end new offers of birthright citizenship for people born on the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte, one of France’s overseas departments. Squeezed between Madagascar and Mozambique and separated from the nearby Comoros islands by only 50 miles (80 kilometers), Mayotte is in the midst of a surge of unauthorized migration that has led to political protests. France’s poorest administrative region, Mayotte is nonetheless the most prosperous territory in the Mozambique Channel, making it a key destination for migration. While the proposed constitutional reform would only exclude people born on Mayotte to non-French parents, critics allege that it could easily be expanded to mainland France, as far-right politicians say they would like to do. In the United States, meanwhile, presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has reiterated his promise to end birthright citizenship if re-elected in November, a position that has become increasingly mainstream among Republican Party leaders. The U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment has long been interpreted to automatically grant citizenship to anyone born on U.S. territory, regardless of parents’ legal status, but a fringe legal effort suggests a new reading of the text. While most legal scholars insist repeal would require a constitutional amendment, an executive order ending U.S. birthright citizenship would lead to deep turmoil and confusion, even if ultimately ruled unconstitutional. The notion that anyone born in a territory should be a full member of its political system (a concept known as jus soli) has a long history in the Americas, though it is less common elsewhere. In most of the world, jus sanguinis (citizenship through right of blood) applies. Calls to end birthright citizenship are not new. Well more than a decade ago, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) calculated the impact of a potential end to U.S. birthright citizenship, finding it would dramatically swell the size of the unauthorized immigrant population—precisely what Trump and his supporters say they want to avoid. Still, world history shows birthright citizenship can be undone. In 2004, Irish voters ended birthright citizenship in a referendum, following outrage over “birth tourism” to Ireland. The high court of the Dominican Republic overturned its jus soli system in 2013, applying the decision retroactively to strip nearly 134,000 people of Haitian descent of their Dominican citizenship. Authoritative data are hard to gather, but the number of stateless people around the world has generally been shrinking. Decisions by more countries to limit access to citizenship would almost surely reverse that trend. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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