Peter Doocy’s Birthright Citizenship Numbers Put a Major Immigration Debate Under the Microscope
A renewed debate over birthright citizenship has put an unusual focus on numbers: how many children are born in the United States to parents who are not U.S. citizens, how many of those children have parents who are in the country without authorization, and what could happen if the longstanding interpretation of birthright citizenship were changed.
Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy has highlighted statistics surrounding children born to noncitizen parents as the issue continues to receive attention in Washington.
The numbers are significant, but they require context.
Birthright citizenship is not simply a question of how many babies are born to immigrant families. It is a constitutional issue involving the meaning of the 14th Amendment, a legal issue involving federal statutes and court decisions, and a political issue involving immigration policy.
At the center of the debate is a straightforward principle that has existed in American law for generations: people generally born on U.S. soil are citizens at birth, regardless of their parents' citizenship or immigration status.
The Congressional Research Service describes the general rule in similar terms, explaining that people born in the United States generally acquire U.S. citizenship at birth regardless of their parents' citizenship or immigration status.
That longstanding practice is what makes the statistics discussed by Doocy and others so important.
They help illustrate the potential size of the population affected if the rules surrounding birthright citizenship were fundamentally changed.
## What the Numbers Are Actually Measuring
One of the most important distinctions in the debate is the difference between a child born to a noncitizen parent and a child born to an unauthorized immigrant parent.
Those categories are not identical.
A noncitizen can be living in the United States legally.
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