Thu Feb 20 02:50:00 UTC 2025: ## Yale Law Student Debunks Claim that Children of Illegal Immigrants Lack Birthright Citizenship
**Chicago, IL** – A second-year Yale Law student, Samarth Desai, has challenged a recent claim by prominent law professors Randy Barnett and Ilan Wurman that children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants are not birthright citizens. Desai’s argument, supported by Northwestern law professor Steven Calabresi, centers on the historical context of the 14th Amendment, specifically focusing on debates surrounding citizenship for children of Confederate rebels during Reconstruction.
Barnett and Wurman argue that birthright citizenship hinges on allegiance, asserting that the parents’ illegal entry negates any such allegiance. Desai counters this “allegiance-as-obedience” theory by pointing to the 1867 congressional debate over stripping Confederate rebels of their citizenship. Despite their treasonous acts, Congress ultimately rejected proposals to revoke their citizenship, demonstrating that obedience wasn’t a prerequisite for birthright citizenship. Key figures like Congressman John Bingham explicitly argued that even rebellious acts did not remove one’s status as a citizen subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
Desai’s analysis highlights the hypocrisy of applying a stricter standard to undocumented immigrants than to Confederate rebels, arguing that if the latter retained citizenship despite rebellion, then the children of undocumented immigrants, who are legally innocent, should undeniably possess birthright citizenship. The historical precedent, Desai and Calabresi contend, soundly refutes the argument that parental actions can negate a child’s birthright citizenship. The debate underscores the ongoing legal and political complexities surrounding birthright citizenship in the United States.
First Piper 