President Donald Trump signed an order on Jan. 20, 2025, to deny birthright citizenship in the United States, a move that targets children of noncitizens and aims to create a permanent underclass of labor. This action, part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown, directly challenges a policy that has historically served to integrate populations into the national economy, whether for colonial expansion or post-slavery labor needs. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of Trump’s order, which he issued 1 year, 5 months ago, on the first day of his second term.
Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. is the only nation granting birthright citizenship, posting on Truth Social in April that “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!” However, approximately three dozen countries, predominantly in the Americas, including Canada, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico, guarantee automatic citizenship to children born on their territory.
Mexico’s policy offers a stark contrast to Trump’s efforts, providing a pathway to stability for migrant families. Vivianne Petit Frere, a Haitian migrant and restaurant owner in Tijuana, Mexico, exemplifies this, as her granddaughter, Alexca, born two years ago, automatically became a Mexican citizen. Petit Frere’s restaurant, Lakou Lakay, meaning “home” in Haitian creole, symbolizes her family’s deepening roots in their adopted homeland.
Petit Frere fled Haiti 7 years ago in 2019, traveling from Brazil and walking through the Panamanian jungle to Mexico while chasing the so-called American Dream, which she later described as an illusion. She has since established a thriving business in Tijuana, become fluent in Spanish, and is pursuing a degree in social work, demonstrating the economic integration facilitated by Mexico’s more open policy.
A History of Capital's Borders
The historical application of birthright citizenship reveals its role in securing populations for state and capital. In the United States, birthright citizenship was enshrined after the Civil War through the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, primarily to ensure former slaves would be citizens, thus integrating them into the post-slavery labor force. The right was expanded to immigrants’ children in the late 1800s, with the Supreme Court ruling that nearly anyone born in the U.S., regardless of parental legal status, has citizenship.
Legal historians trace this practice back to the 1600s and 1700s, when European rulers encouraged migration to the expanding American colonies. César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, noted that colonists wanted their children born overseas to retain European citizenship, maintaining a strong legal tie between the home country and the settlers through the promise of birthright citizenship. This historical context reveals how citizenship was a tool for imperial control and the management of labor and populations.
The State's Hand in Labor Control
The state’s power to define and deny citizenship directly impacts the vulnerability and exploitability of labor. In 2007, 19 years ago, the Dominican Electoral Council officially ordered the denial of citizenship to all children born to parents without legal status. Six years later, a Dominican court applied this ruling retroactively to 1929. Over a decade later, despite the passage of a law in 2014, 12 years ago, to correct the court decision after international condemnation, as many as 130,000 people remained stateless, with the next generation vulnerable to deportation. This demonstrates how state apparatuses can create a permanent underclass, stripped of rights and subject to intensified exploitation.
In Mexico, the policy of birthright citizenship extends to the parents of these children, allowing them to become permanent residents. Petit Frere noted that many Haitian parents in Tijuana, whose children were born in Mexico, have now become permanent residents. She herself had permanent residency before her granddaughter’s birth and is now pursuing Mexican citizenship to expand her business, illustrating how citizenship is tied to economic opportunity and capital accumulation.
Organizing Against Statelessness
Petit Frere also serves as a community organizer with the Haitian Bridge Alliance, advocating for the Haitian migrant community, a crucial example of organized resistance against state policies that restrict labor mobility and access to rights. She hopes to pursue another degree in international migration, possibly through a U.S. university. Her personal experience, having been born in French Saint Martin, which does not offer automatic birthright citizenship, and deported to Haiti at age six, underscores the precariousness of life without citizenship.
Petit Frere expressed gratitude that her granddaughter was born in Mexico rather than Haiti, where surging gang violence has left more than 1 in 10 homeless. She stated that a Mexican passport would make travel easier, offering her granddaughter “more opportunities,” a sentiment echoed for her three nieces who became automatic citizens in Brazil. This highlights the material benefits of citizenship in a global capitalist system that restricts movement and opportunity based on national origin. Trump’s efforts to limit birthright citizenship, she suggested, “could just be out of jealousy,” a comment that underscores the class dimension of access to global mobility and economic stability.