As Donald Trump strikes at birthright citizenship, Americans – and Indians – look up 14th Amendment

WASHINGTON: Two Indians - a male and a female - come to the United States, together or separately. They could have come to study, or perhaps they came to work as professionals, perhaps even on a temporary assignment, as thousands of Indians do each year. They may have come on a student visa, or a guest worker visa, or even a visitor visa. They may be legal, or perhaps they fell out of status and became illegal. Perhaps they even came in illegally. They may be married to each other before they came to America or perhaps they got married in the US after they arrived. A child is born to them.
Regardless of the status of the parents, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution immediately bestows American citizenship on the child, with rare exceptions – such as children born to diplomats serving their country in the US. But broadly, the 14th Amendment holds that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
Thousands of Indian-Americans were born US citizens under this constitutional right. They are Americans by birth, the “Indian” in the description being just an ethnic identifier. Among them is the entertainer Vera Chokalingam, aka Mindy Kaling, whose parents Avu, an architect, and Swati Chokalingam, a doctor, were immigrants when their daughter was born.

On Monday, after it was revealed that President Trump intended to shaft the birthright citizenship that made her American from the get-go, Kaling was nonplussed. ''Wait. I was born in the United States to two Indian professionals who later became proud citizens of this country. So ... now I would be a citizen of India? My contributions to this country would be as a foreigner with no rights?'' she asked.

There is no suggestion that President Trump would or could reverse the already-acquired citizenship of immigrant children, but tens of thousands of Indians and Indian-Americans, perhaps hundreds of thousands, would be asking the same question. Not every parent plots to come to the United States with the exclusive purpose of delivering babies so they can be Americans, as President Trump clearly suspects. Sometimes, perhaps oftentimes, children are born unplanned and are delivered wherever parents live. But for the 14th Amendment, America would not be what it is – a melting pot of immigrants.

Immigration advocates suspect the Trump move, backed by hardliners such as his advisor Stephen Miller, is aimed at arresting the so-called ''browning of America'' that some experts say would be politically disadvantageous to Republicans. Although initial chatter about doing away with birthright citizenship was restricted to children of undocumented immigrants, the more hardline elements want it scrapped for children of anyone isn’t a US citizen.

Trump’s move came even as his administration announced it was sending more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the southern border, ostensibly to stop an immigrant caravan coming through Mexico. Many liberal critics see Trump’s muscular response as part of his strategy to energize his anti-immigrant base on the eve of the November Congressional elections.

Some 35 countries across the world, including Canada, guarantee some sort of birthright citizenship, known as ''jus soli'' (right of the soil). Others grant citizenship on the basis of 'jus sanguinis' (right of the blood) where children can only inherit citizenship from their parents, not their birthplace.

The absurdity of Trump and his minions trying to staunch the melting pot medley that is America goes back to the country’s founding fathers themselves, who, for all the talk of liberty and all men being equal, disenfranchised the people their forbears stole the country from.

Originally, the US Constitution’s Article I said ''Indians (Native Americans) not taxed'' couldn’t be counted in the voting population of states (while slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person). It was only in 1857 that the US Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans, unlike enslaved blacks, could become citizens under congressional and legal supervision.

The 14th Amendment’s ratification in July 1868 made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens, with equal protection and due process under the law, although interpretations of the amendment continued to exclude most of them from citizenship.

Many countries that grant jus soli citizenship have a history of colonization and mass emigration from Europe – among them US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Some countries have a restricted jus soli dispensation.

In Australia for example, a baby born in the country can claim citizenship if one of their parents is a citizen or permanent resident, or if they are born in the country to foreign parents but live the first ten years of their life in Australia. Poland allows people to claim citizenship on the grounds of jus soli provided applicants demonstrate a command of the Polish language

But a majority of countries in the world do not allow jus soli claims. Both India and Pakistan abolished jus soli citizenship in 2004.