Secretary of State Marco Rubio once defended the constitutional protections he’s now complicit in undermining
Last year, the Trump administration issued an executive order that purported to end birthright citizenship for the American-born children of certain non-citizen immigrants. While the order was ultimately blocked as unconstitutional by lower courts (and could now face a similar fate in the highest court in the land), it would have in part instructed the State Department to wrongfully block passports from these categories of U.S.-born children.
Ironically, the department’s top official is himself an American citizen thanks to the same 14th Amendment rights now under unprecedented attack by the administration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio “is the son of Cuban immigrants who did not become naturalized U.S. citizens until 1975, years after their son was born,” USA Today reported last year. Rubio, a former champion of a pathway to citizenship, was actually a one-time critic of the kind of un-American policy he’s now condoning and that could result in potentially millions of stateless U.S.-born children. In fact, Reason reports that Rubio defended birthright citizenship in a legal motion seeking to dismiss a fringe challenge to his 2016 presidential bid that – you guessed it – claimed he wasn’t really a natural-born U.S. citizen due to his parentage.
Rubio isn’t the only prominent administration figure to have benefited from this protected right, either. Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Second Lady Usha Vance are all U.S. citizens thanks to birthright citizenship, the Stop AAPI Hate campaign notes.
Beloved public figures “would not have been American citizens when they were born if birthright had not existed,” USA Today further noted. Legendary martial arts icon Bruce Lee “was born in San Francisco while his parents were traveling with the Chinese Opera,” the report said.
“The National Archives notes that under birthright citizenship he was considered a citizen ‒ though he would not be under Trump’s revision to the law,” USA Today said. “Lee’s parents filed for a Return Certificate on his behalf … enabling him to return to the United States if he later wished to do so. Lee did return at the age of 18 and grew into the iconic martial artist and film star known across the world.”
Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actor and activist Diane Guerrero is also a U.S. citizen thanks to birthright citizenship. Guerrero, who portrayed Maritza in the hit Netflix show “Orange Is The New Black,” was born in New Jersey to undocumented immigrants from Colombia and has been an outspoken advocate for immigrant communities since publicly revealing the deportation of her parents and brother when she was just 14.
This is a country of immigrants, Guerrero said in 2019. “People forget – they like to forget that their ancestors came here with the same dream, with the same hopes, with the same fears. And it’s unfair to say that because people are coming later that they don’t deserve to be here, especially people seeking asylum.”
We should be thankful for them. Researchers with the Center for Migration Studies estimate that the beneficiaries of birthright citizenship will have contributed an estimated $7.7 trillion to the U.S. economy by 2074, “including a projected $1 trillion by future children not yet born and whose economic contribution would be most at risk under the implementation of the Trump administration’s executive order.”
“The cumulative economic losses that could occur if the right to U.S. citizenship by birth is eliminated are considerable,” researchers find, including a potential loss of up to 400,000 workers typically requiring some college education.
“As courts weigh the future of the Fourteenth Amendment, our estimates of the economic contributions of birthright citizenship beneficiaries provide essential information,” researchers continue. “Our analysis suggests that removing this birthright would have significant negative implications for the U.S. economy and its workforce.”
This fight around birthright citizenship is now at the Supreme Court, where justices have heard arguments in Trump v. Barbara, the case around the administration’s effort to terminate this guarantee. Outside the court, hundreds rallied in defense of our constitutional values, including a descendant of Wong Kim Ark, the San Francisco-born Chinese American cook whose historic Supreme Court battle more than 125 years ago affirmed the constitutional principle that everyone born here is American.
Norman Wong, Mr. Ark’s great-grandson, felt it was important to be outside the court to connect his ancestor’s fight to the struggles of today. His great-grandfather “knew he was an American,” Mr. Wong previously said. “And he demanded that his citizenship be recognized. He was willing to stand up. Wong Kim Ark didn’t make the rule. He affirmed the rule.”
In his remarks to the crowd, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) said that if you want to know where to stand on birthright citizenship, all you have to do is look at what our Constitution says. “The 14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States. If you’re born here, you are a citizen. It couldn’t be more clear,” he said.
“And yes, this is personal for me,” Sen. Padilla continued. “I’m a proud citizen of the United States. And I’m a proud son of immigrants. And the moment I was born on U.S. soil, I was born a citizen.”
