| This dissertation, "'The Accident of Birth:' Children, Birth Citizenship, and the Constitution," traces the history of movements to change or eliminate birth citizenship as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution between 1898 and 2012. These efforts have arisen despite the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which affirmed that all persons born in the United States became citizens at birth regardless of parentage.;Opposition to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment has stemmed from concerns that the children of immigrants possessed neither the cultural trappings of an American nor the loyalty to the United States that some felt should be a requisite for citizenship. Significantly, in times of economic uncertainty these arguments became more pronounced, as some Americans came to resent the benefits and resources allotted to such children. Notably, as ideas regarding birth citizenship shifted over time, so too did the children whose citizenship fell under siege, moving from those of Asian descent early in the twentieth century to those of Mexican parents in recent decades.;Through and examination of these movements, this dissertation reveals that the American public has generally embraced a view of citizenship characterized by the principal of jus sanguinis, or citizenship through blood, as opposed to the principle of jus soli, or birth by soil, upon which the Fourteenth Amendment is based. Thus, rather than embrace children born here as fellow citizens, many Americans have come to reject such children as "citizen aliens.". |
