Today, First Focus Campaign for Children sent a letter to the sponsors of S. 2274, the Constitutional Citizenship Clarification Act of 2025, strongly opposing the legislation because it is unconstitutional and because it singles out one group for harm: Babies.
Excerpt from the letter:
Your proposed bill’s assertion that only children born to citizens or lawful permanent residents should be considered U.S. citizens fundamentally misinterprets the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly rejected arguments to restrict citizenship based on parentage….
Beyond its constitutional defects, this legislation poses grave risks to children, particularly babies. It challenges a fundamental question of who we are as a country and how we treat our youngest and most vulnerable residents – our children at their most formative stages.
Stripping away or denying citizenship to children born in the United States would create a new underclass of stateless individuals who are defenseless – depriving them of fundamental rights, including access to education, health care, nutrition, and economic opportunity. These stateless children, who are innocent of having committed any crime, would be subjected to barriers in obtaining identification documents, employment, and even basic protections under the law.
Consequently, the bill violates fundamental legal tenets of fairness and due process.