Viewpoints
Opinion

Understanding the Constitution: How States May Respond to Illegal Immigration, Part V: About Birthright Citizenship

This final part looks at the Constitution’s words “natural born Citizen” and the claim that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are “birthright citizens.”
Understanding the Constitution: How States May Respond to Illegal Immigration, Part V: About Birthright Citizenship
Illegal immigrants who passed through a gap in the U.S. border wall await processing by Border Patrol agents in Jacumba, Calif., on Dec. 7, 2023. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times
Rob Natelson
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Commentary
Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV of this series on how states may respond to illegal immigration summarized war powers retained by the states. Those installments explained how states can use those powers to check illegal entry at the southern border.
Rob Natelson
Rob Natelson
Author
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor who is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, authored “The Original Constitution” (4th ed., 2025). He is a contributor to The Heritage Foundation’s “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.” He also researched and wrote the scholarly article “Virgil and the Constitution,” whose publication is pending in Regent University Law Review.
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