WASHINGTON, October 14, 2026: America was not always as it is today, as the criteria for naturalisation have evolved over time, and now it is up to the American born generations to determine whether the United States will remain open to immigrants or gradually redefine its identity as a country of citizens born within its borders.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine states: “At present, immigration law is one of the most important of these contexts in that it creates varying degrees of stability and opportunities, with potentially profound implications for immigrant integration.”
During the debate over the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy argued that discrimination based on birthplace had been removed from other areas of American life but remained part of immigration law. The Migration Policy Institute acknowledges the influence of the civil rights movement but argues that international pressure and Cold War considerations were also fundamental to ending the national origin quota system.
Citizenship Rules Excluded Groups and Restricted Rights
The first federal naturalisation law, enacted in 1790, limited eligibility to free white people. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that people of African descent whose ancestors had been enslaved could not be US citizens under the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, established citizenship for people born or naturalised in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a US citizen. The National Archives preserves the Dred Scott decision, while the Library of Congress provides the Wong Kim Ark judgment.
The National Academies reports that the Supreme Court upheld Asian immigrants’ ineligibility for naturalisation in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind in 1923. The report states: “Beyond setting up barriers to political integration, lack of U.S. citizenship could matter for jobs and owning property. In many Western states, noncitizens were barred from the right to own land.”
The National Academies also describes how European immigrants who entered the United States without inspection to avoid the quota laws of the 1920s faced relatively few repercussions: “For white European immigrants who entered the United States without inspection to avoid the Quota Acts of the 1920s, there were relatively few repercussions, and they were often able to naturalize at a later date.”
Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, extending US citizenship to Indigenous people born within the country who had not previously acquired it. The Bureau of Indian Affairs states that federally recognised tribes retain powers of self government and determine their own membership requirements.
Immigration Quotas Favoured Some Countries Over Others
In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, suspending Chinese labour immigration and barring Chinese immigrants from naturalisation. The law stated that the US government considered Chinese labour immigration a threat to “the good order of certain localities within the territory thereof.” Congress extended the restrictions in 1892 and made them permanent in 1902.
The National Archives’ history of Asian immigration describes how immigration enforcement involved scrutiny of identity documents, family relationships and legal status. Congress repealed the Chinese exclusion laws in 1943, but Chinese immigration remained subject to a small annual quota.
The Immigration Act of 1924 extended restrictive immigration policies through a national quota system based on population figures from the 1890 census. The Migration Policy Institute says the quotas were “rooted in eugenics and designed to restore a Northern and Western European demographic majority.” According to the institute, annual arrivals fell from nearly 707,000 in 1924 to 280,000 in 1929.
President Harry Truman vetoed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 because it retained the national origin quota system, but Congress overrode his veto. The act removed racial restrictions on naturalisation while preserving quotas that favoured immigration from Northern and Western Europe and severely limited immigration from Asian countries.
Congress abolished the national origin quota system through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, introducing preferences based primarily on family relationships and employment skills. Kennedy’s argument for reform reflected the civil rights case against discrimination based on birthplace.
The Migration Policy Institute, however, argues that international developments were also central to the change. According to the institute, newly independent countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America challenged US immigration policies in international forums, while Cold War competition increased Washington’s need for support from countries whose citizens faced discriminatory restrictions. The institute also cites a 1952 commission report that warned that the existing system damaged US foreign policy.
The Migration Policy Institute reports that Europe and Canada accounted for 60 percent of legal immigration in the 1950s, compared with 22 percent in the 1970s. The share from Asia rose from 6 percent in the 1950s to 35 percent in the 1980s and 40 percent in 2013. The institute attributes this shift to the end of national origin quotas and the introduction of family and employment preferences.
Birthright Citizenship Returns to the Legal Debate
The debate over citizenship by birth returned to the Supreme Court after President Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 20, 2025, seeking to deny automatic citizenship to certain children born in the United States to parents who were unlawfully or temporarily present in the country.
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Barbara that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. The Supreme Court’s opinion sets out the Court’s ruling.
On August 6, the administration issued two further executive orders. Executive Order 14418 addressed citizenship documentation under the administration’s interpretation of the Court’s ruling. Executive Order 14419 directed federal agencies to take measures against birth tourism. The White House said the orders were intended to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship and prevent the misuse of temporary visas.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer challenged the administration’s new orders, describing them as illegal and saying Democrats would contest them in court. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries welcomed the Supreme Court ruling, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship guarantee had withstood an unconstitutional attempt to restrict it.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Law Caucus and the Democracy Defenders Fund brought the case on behalf of children who would have been denied citizenship under the administration’s original policy. Following the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union said the Court had rejected the administration’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship.
The Migration Policy Institute examined birth tourism, one of the administration’s stated concerns. The institute cited a contested estimate of 22,000 to 26,000 births annually associated with foreign nationals travelling to the United States specifically to give birth. Government data recorded about 9,600 births in 2024 to mothers whose addresses were outside the United States, although this figure also includes women who did not travel to the country for the purpose of giving birth.
In a separate analysis, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that ending birthright citizenship for children born to unauthorised immigrants or certain temporary visa holders could increase the unauthorised population by 2.7 million by 2045 and 5.4 million by 2075.
Immigration and the Changing Meaning of American Citizenship
The US Census Bureau counted 50.2 million foreign born residents in 2024, representing 14.8 percent of the population. The share had fallen to 4.7 percent in 1970 after reaching 14.8 percent in 1890.
The Migration Policy Institute reported that immigrants and their US born children represented 27 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalised population in 2023. Immigrants accounted for 17 percent of the US civilian labour force in 2022, according to the institute’s immigration statistics.
However, public opinion remains divided. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in April 2025 found that 50 percent of US adults supported citizenship for children born in the country to parents who had immigrated unlawfully, while 49 percent opposed it. Support differed sharply by political affiliation: 74 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaning independents supported citizenship in these circumstances, compared with 25 percent of Republicans and Republican leaning independents.
A separate AP NORC poll, conducted in April 2026, found that 65 percent supported citizenship for all children born in the United States. When asked specifically about children born to parents in the country unlawfully, however, 49 percent supported citizenship and 49 percent opposed it. The results differed according to the circumstances specified in the survey questions.
Immigration, Work and Everyday Life
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that foreign born workers accounted for 19.1 percent of the US civilian labour force in 2025. Their unemployment rate was 4.2 percent, compared with 4.3 percent among native born workers. The figures cover foreign born residents with different immigration statuses and do not distinguish citizens from noncitizens in the labour force totals.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that “the impact of immigration on the wages of natives overall is very small.”
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that increased immigration between 2021 and 2026 would reduce federal budget deficits by $900 billion over the 2024 to 2034 period. The agency attributed the projected change to additional tax revenues and broader economic activity, alongside higher spending on government programmes and interest on the debt.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, a federation of US labour unions, opposed the administration’s immigration enforcement operations. The federation’s president, Liz Shuler, said the operations were “trampling on working people’s fundamental rights and freedoms”. The federation argued that reducing labour enforcement while expanding immigration enforcement weakened protections against wage theft, unsafe workplaces and employer exploitation.
The report also quoted Oliver Smith, a member of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers and Communications Workers of America, who said of deportations affecting his workplace: “deporting my co-workers just hurts my line”. Smith added that the removals hurt GE’s ability to produce American made appliances in Louisville.
The Economic Policy Institute stated that “the average effect of immigration on native-born wages is essentially zero.”
Citizenship and the Future of American Identity
A University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll, conducted in March 2026 among 1,000 respondents, found that 74 percent believed Americans had more things in common than divided them. Fifty nine percent said the founding ideals of the Declaration of Independence still guided the country in meaningful ways, while 57 percent believed the United States had achieved its founding ideals to a great or moderate extent. The poll also found differences between Republicans and Democrats in their assessments of the country’s founding ideals.
The Public Religion Research Institute, drawing on its 2025 American Values Survey, found that 93 percent of Americans considered belief in individual freedoms important to being truly American, 91 percent identified belief in the Constitution, and 89 percent identified acceptance of people from diverse racial and religious backgrounds. Meanwhile, 75 percent considered speaking English important, 54 percent identified being born in America, and 43 percent identified being Christian. The survey also found that 60 percent supported allowing immigrants living in the United States unlawfully to become citizens if they met certain requirements.
A review of empirical research published in the Annual Review of Political Science reported that “existing research documents a high degree of consensus across demographic groups regarding how American identity is defined”. The review also stated that research “reveals both beneficial and harmful consequences of people strongly identifying as American.”
The Brookings Institution compared three possible US population scenarios through 2051. Under its zero immigration scenario, the population was projected to fall to 312 million. Under the low immigration scenario, it was projected to reach 345 million, while the high immigration scenario projected 385 million. Brookings concluded: “Demography does not fully determine the nation’s destiny. But it will surely shape it in powerful ways over the next 25 years.”
From a European perspective, the European Parliamentary Research Service stated that transatlantic relations “could see the alliance seriously weakened – or irreparably changed – as mutual confidence erodes and both sides brace for repeated confrontation on core issues.” Its February 2026 study also identified continuing opportunities for cooperation in “mutual security, innovation, infrastructure development, and economic resilience.”
The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, in its September 2025 briefing paper, set out four possible scenarios for transatlantic relations over the following five to ten years: “neglect, partner, vassal, and bloc logic”. The paper states that the scenarios “each present specific challenges and trade-offs for Europe.” It describes the first two scenarios as less difficult for Europe because they would preserve European strategic autonomy, while the other two would present more challenging choices.
