I have been sitting here thinking about Donald Trump’s comments about birthright citizenship, and whether you agree with him politically or not, this is one of those conversations where we need to actually know the history before everybody starts yelling at each other.

Trump has repeatedly argued that birthright citizenship was created for the children of enslaved people rather than as a way for foreign nationals to come to the United States, have children here, and automatically make those children American citizens. In March 2026, Trump wrote that birthright citizenship had to do with the “babies of slaves,” while criticizing its application to wealthy Chinese nationals whose children are born in America. He has made similar comments publicly when discussing his attempts to restrict birthright citizenship.

Now, there is one part of this history that people should not pretend isn’t true: the 14th Amendment came directly out of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and Black Americans were central to why it was created.

The amendment was ratified in 1868, just a few years after slavery was abolished. Before the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision had declared that people of African descent could not be U.S. citizens under the Constitution. After the Civil War, this country had millions of formerly enslaved Black people whose citizenship and basic civil rights needed constitutional protection.

That historical reality matters. But this is where Trump’s argument becomes controversial. The people who wrote the 14th Amendment did not write, “Black people born in America are citizens.” They did not write, “children of former slaves are citizens.”

They wrote:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Those two words — “all persons” — are a huge part of this entire legal fight.

So, yes, the historical circumstances surrounding the amendment absolutely involved securing citizenship for formerly enslaved Black Americans. The National Archives itself explains that a major purpose of the 14th Amendment was granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.

But saying that was one of its fundamental purposes is different from saying the citizenship guarantee legally applies only to Black Americans descended from enslaved people. Those are two completely different claims.

Then Came Wong Kim Ark

This is where the history becomes even more important. In 1898, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. After traveling to China, he was denied entry back into the United States because the government argued that he wasn’t an American citizen. Think about that.

This was not a descendant of enslaved Black Americans. This was an American-born man whose parents were Chinese immigrants. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark was an American citizen because he had been born in the United States and his circumstances fell under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.

That decision is extremely important because it demonstrates that the constitutional principle was being applied beyond formerly enslaved Black Americans and their descendants more than a century ago. That is why I think people need to separate two questions: Why was the 14th Amendment created? and Who does the 14th Amendment legally cover?

Those questions are related, but they are not identical. The historical answer to the first question unquestionably includes Black Americans and the aftermath of slavery. But the constitutional text and subsequent Supreme Court precedent have given birthright citizenship a much broader legal application.

Trump Has Tried to Change That Interpretation

Trump has not simply talked about this issue. On January 20, 2025, he signed Executive Order 14160, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” His administration sought to prevent the federal government from recognizing citizenship for certain children born in the United States when their parents were undocumented immigrants or were here under temporary immigration statuses. That created an enormous constitutional battle.

And this is what bothers me about the way we discuss this issue. People can have a legitimate political conversation about illegal immigration. People can debate immigration levels. People can debate border security. People can even debate whether America’s birthright-citizenship system makes sense as public policy.

But the Constitution doesn’t disappear because somebody doesn’t like the result. If you want to change something protected by the Constitution, there is a constitutional amendment process. A president cannot simply decide that words in the Constitution mean something completely different because immigration policy has changed.

And as of 2026, the Supreme Court has rejected Trump’s broader effort to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children based on their parents’ immigration status, reaffirming constitutional birthright citizenship. Trump has continued trying narrower approaches to the issue, including actions targeting circumstances such as “birth tourism,” but those efforts raise their own constitutional questions.

And Black Americans Should Pay Attention to This Debate Too

There is another part of this conversation that I don’t think should get lost. Black Americans have every right to remind this country why the 14th Amendment exists. It didn’t magically appear. It came after slavery. It came after Black people had been treated as property. It came after Dred Scott.

It came during Reconstruction, when America was attempting to answer an enormous question: Were formerly enslaved people and their children truly citizens of the country they had helped build? The answer written into the Constitution was yes. That history should NEVER be erased. But acknowledging that history doesn’t require us to rewrite what the amendment ultimately says.

The writers could have limited citizenship specifically to former slaves and their descendants. They didn’t. They used the words “all persons.” And once the Supreme Court decided Wong Kim Ark in 1898, there was powerful precedent establishing that the Citizenship Clause applied to American-born children of immigrants as well.

This Is Why We Have to Stop Turning Everything Into Political Teams

I don’t care whether somebody has an R or a D beside their name when we’re talking about the Constitution. Read it. Learn the history. Look at the court cases. Then form your opinion.

Trump is pointing to a real piece of American history when he says the 14th Amendment was created in the aftermath of slavery. Anybody pretending Black citizenship wasn’t central to the amendment’s creation isn’t being truthful about Reconstruction.

But taking that historical fact and jumping to the conclusion that birthright citizenship therefore belongs exclusively to descendants of enslaved Black Americans is where the argument runs into the actual wording of the Constitution and more than a century of Supreme Court precedent. And that’s the distinction I wish more people would make.

We can recognize that Black Americans were the reason this country was forced to confront citizenship after slavery while also recognizing that the amendment Congress ultimately wrote used language broader than one racial group. Those things can both be true. This is exactly why Americans need to understand their own history.

Because when politicians — Republican, Democrat or otherwise — start interpreting constitutional rights, we should know enough about the Constitution ourselves to ask: Is that actually what the Constitution says? Don’t just listen to Trump. Don’t just listen to Democrats. Don’t just listen to somebody yelling on television.

Go read the 14th Amendment yourself. Because this isn’t some little political argument. We’re talking about who gets to be called an American citizen. And that is about as serious as it gets.

References

National Archives. (n.d.). 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868). National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment

National Archives at San Francisco. (n.d.). Departure statement of Wong Kim Ark, 1894. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/san-francisco/highlights/wong-kim-ark

National Archives. (n.d.). Documented rights: Defining rights. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/documented-rights/exhibit/section2/defining-rights.html

PolitiFact. (2026, March 31). Fact-check: Trump misleads about birthright citizenship, birth tourism before SCOTUS hearing. PolitiFact.

Reuters. (2026, August 6). Trump signs orders to limit U.S. birthright citizenship, despite Supreme Court ruling. Reuters.

Associated Press. (2026, August). What to know about Trump’s new attempt to limit birthright citizenship. AP News.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.