14th Amendment Citizenship: Birthright, Naturalization, and Loss

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, ratified on July 9, 1868, defines who is an American. It says that anyone born in the United States and subject to its legal authority is a citizen, and that anyone who completes naturalization holds the same citizenship as someone born here.¹ The amendment overturned the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which had held that people of African descent could never be citizens.² More than a century and a half later, that single sentence still sets the terms of every argument about who belongs.

What the Citizenship Clause Says

Section 1 opens with one sentence: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”¹ That gives two paths to citizenship. Birth on U.S. soil is one. Naturalization is the other. Both produce the same constitutional status.

The clause also makes you a citizen of the state where you live, not just of the country. That layer matters. Before 1868, states had wide discretion over who counted as a citizen within their borders. The amendment moved that decision into the Constitution and out of state hands.

Who Is Born “Subject to the Jurisdiction”

The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is where the fights happen. The Supreme Court settled its meaning in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), holding that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents lawfully residing in the country was a citizen at birth. The Court read the jurisdictional language to exclude only a narrow group: children of foreign diplomats and children of members of a hostile occupying force.³

In practical terms, being “subject to the jurisdiction” means being bound by American law. If you are on U.S. soil, you follow U.S. laws, you can be arrested and prosecuted, and you can go to U.S. courts for protection. Almost everyone physically present in the country meets that standard: residents, tourists, students, and undocumented immigrants alike. Their children born here are citizens.

Diplomatic Immunity

Children born to accredited foreign diplomats do not receive birthright citizenship. Diplomats are shielded from U.S. legal authority under international law, so they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” in the constitutional sense. The Wong Kim Ark Court flagged this by pointing out that Wong’s parents were engaged in private business and were “never employed in any diplomatic or official capacity.”³ The exception is small. It reaches only diplomats formally accredited to the United States, not every foreign government employee in the country.

Native Americans

The jurisdictional language also once excluded many Native Americans, who were treated as citizens of sovereign tribes rather than of the United States. Congress closed that gap with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which made all Native Americans born within U.S. territorial limits citizens.⁴ Federal immigration law now separately confirms citizenship at birth for anyone born in the United States to a member of an indigenous tribe.⁵

The Current Fight Over Birthright Citizenship

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14160, directing federal agencies to stop recognizing citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who were neither citizens nor lawful permanent residents.⁶ The order never took effect. Federal courts blocked it almost immediately, one judge in Seattle calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” Every federal court that considered the order struck it down, and a divided Ninth Circuit panel held that it “contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The Supreme Court took the case, Trump v. Barbara, on an expedited schedule and heard oral argument on April 1, 2026. At argument, a majority of the justices appeared skeptical of the administration’s position. The case remains pending as of mid-2026. The lower courts have been unanimous: the Citizenship Clause means what Wong Kim Ark said it meant more than a century ago, and the executive branch cannot rewrite it by order.

Children Born Abroad to U.S. Parents

The Fourteenth Amendment covers birth on U.S. soil. If you were born abroad, your citizenship comes from a federal statute, not the Constitution. Congress has set those rules in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and they depend on your parents’ citizenship and how long they lived in the United States before you were born.⁵

Two U.S. citizen parents: at least one must have lived in the United States or an outlying possession at some point before the child’s birth, with no minimum duration.
One U.S. citizen parent and one non-citizen parent: the citizen parent must have been physically present in the United States for at least five years total before the child’s birth, with at least two of those years after age 14. Military service and certain government employment abroad can count.
One U.S. citizen parent and one U.S. national parent: the citizen parent must have been physically present in the United States for at least one continuous year before the child’s birth.

The difference between constitutional and statutory citizenship is not just academic. In Rogers v. Bellei (1971), the Supreme Court held that citizens by statute do not have the same constitutional guarantee against loss of citizenship that Fourteenth Amendment citizens do. Congress created the right, and Congress can attach conditions.⁷

Citizenship in U.S. Territories

People born in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are U.S. citizens at birth, but not because of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court has treated unincorporated territories as legally distinct from the states, so the Citizenship Clause does not reach them on its own. Congress extended birthright citizenship to each territory by separate legislation, and federal law now lists those territorial births alongside births in the states.⁵ Someone born in San Juan holds the same citizenship as someone born in Chicago, but the legal basis is a statute rather than the Constitution.

Naturalized Citizens

Once you naturalize, you hold the same constitutional citizenship as someone born here. You can vote, hold most public offices, serve on juries, and get consular protection abroad.¹ There is one exception. Article II restricts the presidency to a “natural born Citizen,” and the Twelfth Amendment carries that requirement over to the vice presidency. A naturalized citizen can serve in Congress, on the Supreme Court, in the Cabinet, or as a governor, but cannot become president or vice president.⁸

When Citizenship Can Be Lost

The short answer for people born citizens: it cannot be taken from you against your will. In Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), the Supreme Court held that Congress has no power to strip citizenship without the citizen’s consent. The case involved a naturalized citizen who had voted in an Israeli election, then an automatic ground for loss of citizenship under federal law. The Court struck that provision down, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment protects “every citizen of this Nation against a congressional forcible destruction of his citizenship.”⁹ The government cannot cancel your citizenship because you voted abroad, took a foreign government job, or committed a crime. What matters is whether you personally intended to give it up.

Denaturalization

Naturalized citizens face one additional vulnerability. The federal government can sue in federal court to revoke naturalization, but only on specific grounds.¹⁰

Fraud or willful misrepresentation during the naturalization process. In Maslenjak v. United States (2017), the Supreme Court held that the false statement must have actually influenced the citizenship decision; minor or irrelevant misstatements are not enough.¹¹
Illegal procurement, meaning you did not actually meet the eligibility requirements (residency, physical presence, good moral character, and so on) at the time you were naturalized. Intent to deceive is not required.¹²
Joining a totalitarian party or terrorist organization within five years of becoming a citizen, treated as evidence of concealment at the time of the oath.
Dishonorable discharge before completing five years of military service, when citizenship was based on that service.

Because of Afroyim, denaturalization cases are built on something that was wrong at the moment of naturalization, not on later conduct.

Voluntary Renunciation

The only way to lose citizenship is to give it up yourself, and even that takes work. Federal law lists several acts that can cause loss of nationality, including taking foreign citizenship, swearing allegiance to another country, or serving in a foreign military. Each one counts only if you did it voluntarily and “with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality.”¹³ Without that intent, none of those acts affects your status.

The clearest path is formal renunciation before a U.S. consular officer at an embassy or consulate abroad. You must appear in person, sign a prescribed oath, and surrender your passport. Renunciation by mail or from inside the United States is not available outside narrow wartime circumstances. The step is not final until the State Department approves a Certificate of Loss of Nationality.¹⁴

As of April 13, 2026, the State Department fee for processing a renunciation dropped from $2,350 to $450.¹⁵ Anyone who renounces must also file IRS Form 8854 for the tax year of expatriation, and depending on net worth and tax history may owe an exit tax on unrealized gains. Renunciation is permanent; there is no simplified route back.

The Rest of Section 1

The Citizenship Clause is only the first sentence of Section 1. The rest contains two provisions that have become cornerstones of American constitutional law. The Due Process Clause prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without fair legal proceedings. The Equal Protection Clause bars states from denying anyone within their borders the equal protection of the law.¹

Both clauses protect “persons,” not just “citizens,” so noncitizens on U.S. soil also receive those guarantees. Citizenship matters most for the clause between them, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, which protects the rights of “citizens of the United States” specifically. That is why defining who is a citizen carries so much weight. It decides who votes, who can hold certain offices, and who receives the full bundle of constitutional rights rather than only the protections extended to every person present in the country.

1
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment
2
National Archives. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
3
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. United States v. Wong Kim Ark – 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
4
National Archives. Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1401 – Nationals and Citizens of United States at Birth
6
U.S. Department of State. Executive Order 14160 – Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship
7
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Chapter 3 – U.S. Citizens at Birth (INA 301 and 309)
8
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Article II
9
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967)
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1451 – Revocation of Naturalization
11
Supreme Court of the United States. Maslenjak v. United States, 582 U.S. 335 (2017)
12
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Grounds for Revocation of Naturalization
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1481 – Loss of Nationality
14
U.S. Department of State. Oath of Renunciation of U.S. Citizenship – INA 349(a)(5)
15
Federal Register. Schedule of Fees for Consular Services – Fee for Administrative Processing of Request for Certificate of Loss of Nationality