reform United States immigration law to be consistent 
with the statement’s original meaning by denying auto-
matic citizenship at birth to children born in the United 
States to parents who are not United States nationals, 
aliens lawfully admitted to the United States as refugees, 
aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or aliens 
performing active service in the United States Armed 
Forces. 
SEC. 3. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Naturalization is an exclusive power of Con-
gress, as stated in article I, section 8, clause 4 of 
the Constitution, ‘‘The Congress should have power 
. . . To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization 
. . .’’. 
(2) The phrase ‘‘subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof’’ as stated in the Immigration and Nation-
ality Act, references the same statement found in 
section 1 of the 14th Amendment, and carries the 
same meaning. 
(3) The phrase ‘‘subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof’’ is a legal term of art, derived from concepts 
related to a limited jus soli, and understood by the 
drafters of the 14th Amendment to have its basis in 
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English common law, which in turn has its basis in 
Roman law. 
(4) Bartolus de Saxoferrato, a 14th-century 
Italian and one of the first legal scholars to study 
the Roman concept of the acquisition of citizenship, 
civilitas civilatis, as deduced from the Corpus Juris 
Civilis, determined that a Roman citizen by birth, 
civis ab origine, was one who had been born within 
the territory of the state and to at least one parent 
who was already a citizen of the state. 
(5) In the earliest known case to articulate jus 
soli in England, Calvin v. Smith (Calvin’s Case), it 
was agreed that the statuses of ‘‘subject’’ and 
‘‘alien’’ were determined by whether a person was 
born owing allegiance to the sovereign, as indicated 
by the Latin phrase ad fidem regis. 
(6) Sir Edward Coke, one of the judges decid-
ing Calvin’s Case, extrapolated one exception to jus 
soli, writing, ‘‘But if enemies should come into any 
of the King’s dominions, and surprise any castle or 
fort, and possess the same by hostility, and have 
issue there, that issue is no subject to the King, 
though he be born within his dominions, for that he 
was not born under the King’s ligeance or obedience. 
But the time of his birth us of the essence of a sub-
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ject born; for he cannot be a subject to the King of 
England, unless at the time of his birth he was 
under the ligeance and obedience of the King.’’. 
(7) Whether a person at birth is under the 
ligeance and obedience to the sovereign is not deter-
mined by whether his foreign parent is subject to the 
territorial jurisdiction of prosecution, as any foreign 
enemy, marauder or bandit, would be subject to the 
law of the land when captured, but, instead, whether 
his parent is present in the territory lawfully and 
permanently, not only voluntarily availing himself to 
the jurisdiction thereof, but doing so with the con-
sent of the sovereign. 
(8) Senator Howard, when proposing language 
to be included in the 14th Amendment and making 
reference to English common law exceptions, clari-
fied his intent that citizenship should not be con-
veyed to everyone born or present in the United 
States, when he stated, ‘‘This will not, of course, in-
clude persons born in the United States who are for-
eigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambas-
sadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Govern-
ment of the United States, but will include every 
other class of persons’’. 
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(9) Senator Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in 
the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that 
‘‘subject to the jurisdiction’’ of the United States 
meant not owing allegiance to any other country. 
(10) Owing allegiance to the United States and 
being subject to its complete jurisdiction means 
being ‘‘not subject to any foreign power’’ and ex-
cludes those only temporarily present in the country 
whether lawfully or unlawfully. 
(11) The 14th Amendment’s framers intended 
to give citizenship only to those who owed their alle-
giance to the United States and were subject to its 
complete jurisdiction, primarily the newly freed 
slaves, who were lawful permanent residents. 
(12) The 1866 Civil Rights Act further clarified 
that the 14th Amendment did not apply to tem-
porary visitors or those who remained the citizen or 
subject of a parent’s home country when it stated, 
‘‘All persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, and not subject to any foreign power, exclud-
ing Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citi-
zens of the United States.’’. 
(13) American Indians and their children did 
not become citizens until Congress passed the Indian 
Citizenship Act of 1924, which would have been re-
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dundant if the 14th Amendment extended citizen-
ship to every person born in the United States, no 
matter what the circumstances of their birth or par-
entage. 
(14) Since the inception of the 14th Amend-
ment, the Supreme Court has never interpreted the 
14th Amendment to extend birthright citizenship to 
the children of any class of individuals who are not 
citizens themselves, or lawful permanent residents. 
(15) Congressional intent and understanding of 
its ability to legislate naturalization within the origi-
nal public meaning of the 14th Amendment is clear 
and apparent as evidenced by legislation. 
(16) The current concept of unqualified birth-
right citizenship is inconsistent with the history and 
meaning of the 14th Amendment and has been 
granted far too broadly in recent decades, enabling 
fraud and civilizational altering levels of immigration 
spurred by persons who have illegally crossed our 
borders to obtain citizenship for their children under 
the misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. 
(17) The United States is one of two developed 
nations that currently grants automatic citizenship 
so expansively to children born within its borders. 
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(18) Unqualified birthright citizenship provides 
a strong incentive for illegal immigrants to cross the 
southern border of the United States. When their 
child is born on United States soil, the family can 
return to their home country, and 21 years later, the 
family may return as a part of chain migration not 
subject to the numerical limitations by which we 
control most international migration. 
(19) Illegal immigrants who crossed into the 
United States to give birth, often return to Mexico, 
sending their children across the border daily to at-
tend American public schools, crowding out Amer-
ican students and taking advantage of American tax 
dollars. 
(20) Apprehensions of persons attempting to 
enter the United States illegally at the southern bor-
der of the United States surpassed 2,300,000 in fis-
cal year 2022 and has been increasing exponentially 
since 2020, and steadily since 1980. 
(21) Millions of illegal immigrants have at least 
one child who is deemed a citizen under the erro-
neous interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Esti-
mates show that most children of unauthorized im-
migrants are citizens by birth, and the number has 
been increasing exponentially since 2003. 
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(22) Unqualified birthright citizenship has en-
abled an entire black market. Estimates show that 
birth tourism results in 33,000 births to women on 
tourist visas annually, and hundreds of thousands 
more are born to mothers who are illegal aliens or 
present on temporary visas, many of whom have 
misrepresented the purpose of their trip to avoid 
scrutiny. 
(23) The birth tourism industry is rampant in 
the United States territories, with more annual 
births to foreign visitors than native residents in the 
Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. 
(24) The Government Accountability Office has 
found the fiscal impact of providing public benefits 
to illegal aliens, noting that— 
(A) illegal aliens and their United States 
children are eligible to receive emergency Med-
icaid services, primary and secondary education, 
school nutrition services, Aid to Families with 
Dependent Children (AFDC), and food stamp 
benefits; 
(B) cost data are not readily available be-
cause illegal aliens are not required to reveal 
their eligibility to receive certain benefits, and 
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officials are often prohibited from inquiring 
about the status of illegal aliens; 
(C) the total costs of providing benefits to 
illegal aliens is unknown due to Federal and 
State cost data limitations; 
(D) the estimated cost of providing AFDC 
benefits to children of illegal aliens was 
$479,000,000 for 1992; 
(E) of the 5 States that account for about 
80 percent of the illegal immigrant population, 
California provided the most benefits totaling 
$2,900,000,000; 
(F) the cost of providing benefits to illegal 
aliens is expected to increase some program 
costs; and 
(G) the complete fiscal impact of providing 
benefits to illegal aliens cannot be determined, 
since government revenues attributable to ille-
gal aliens are unknown. 
SEC. 4. CLARIFICATION OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP. 
Section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act 
(8 U.S.C. 1101) is amended by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(j) For purposes of section 301(a), the term ‘subject 
to the jurisdiction thereof’ means, with respect to a person 
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born in the United States, that the person was born to 
a parent who is, at the time of the person’s birth— 
‘‘(1) a national of the United States; 
‘‘(2) a refugee; 
‘‘(3) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent 
residence; or 
‘‘(4) an alien performing active service in the 
armed forces (as defined in section 101 of title 10, 
United States Code).’’. 
SEC. 5. EFFECTIVE DATE. 
The amendments made by this Act shall apply to per-
sons born on or after the date of the enactment of this 
Act. 
Æ 
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