Would President-elect Donald Trump's immigration plan have denied his son Barron citizenship in the United States? No, that's not true: Barron Trump's father is a U.S. citizen. While his mother Melania Trump was not yet a naturalized citizen when Barron was born in 2006 in New York City, she was a legal resident at the time. Thus under Trump's stated plan of "at least one parent will have to be a citizen or a legal resident" for a newborn to have citizenship, Barron would have qualified with both parents. And future proposals notwithstanding, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that anyone born in the United States is a citizen from birth.
The implied claim appeared in a post on Threads (archived here) on November 17, 2024. It read:
BARON TRUMP WAS BORN ON MARCH 20 2006
MELANIA BECAME AN AMERICAN CITIZEN JULY 28 2006
SOO........ .SHE WAS NOT A CITIZEN WHEN HE WAS BORN. SOOO. 3
BARON WAS NOT BORN TO AN AMERICAN MOTHER.. DOESN'T THAT
GO AGAINST HIS IMMIGRATION LAWS?
This is what the Threads post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Nov 18 15:15:11 2024 UTC)
The post implies that if Barron Trump had been born under Donald Trump's "immigration laws," the child would not have qualified for U.S. citizenship.
According to President-elect Trump's agenda as he explains it on the donaldjtrump.com website, he plans to sign an executive order on the first day of his second term that says "going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship." At 3:10 (archived here) in a video on the website, he says this about future American citizens:
At least one parent will have to be a citizen or a legal resident in order to qualify [for citizenship].
In the video, Trump says his executive order will also stop birth tourism, the practice of traveling to a country to give the unborn child automatic citizenship in that country.
Barron Trump, Donald Trump's youngest child, was born on March 20, 2006 in New York.
Contrary to what the Threads post implies, if the president-elect's proposals had been in effect at the time of Barron's birth, the child would still have been a U.S. citizen by virtue of his father, Donald Trump, who was born in Queens, New York. Also Melania Trump was a legal resident of the U.S. at the time of her son's birth, doubly qualifying the child for citizenship under Trump's proposal of at least one parent being a legal resident. Melania Trump became a U.S. citizen in 2006 shortly after her son was born.
And then there's the constitutional clause on citizenship.
The U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment states that:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
H. Jefferson Powell, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Duke Law School, responded to a question from Lead Stories asking if it was possible for the president of the United States to enact an executive order that would, in effect, surpass the 14th Amendment in requirements for citizenship. He responded in an November 19, 2024, email:
No executive order can deprive any US citizen of his or her citizenship.
Amanda Frost, a professor who teaches immigration and citizenship law at the University of Virginia School of Law, answered the same question in this November 19, 2024, email:
Under any policies I have heard reference, Barron Trump would be a citizen because his father was a citizen when he was born. Every proposal (and proposed bill) I have seen on this topic applies only to children born to parents who are both either undocumented or both temporarily in the U.S. (e.g., as tourists or students, not green card holders).
More Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning Donald Trump are here. Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims surrounding Barron Trump are here.
