Could second lady Usha Vance have her U.S. citizenship revoked because of the executive order President Donald Trump issued that seeks to ban automatic citizenship for some babies born to a parent with no permanent legal status in the United States? No, that's not true: Trump's order would apply only to children born after February 19, 2025. The wife of Vice President J.D. Vance was born in the United States in 1986 to parents who immigrated from India.
The claim appeared in a post on Threads (archived here) on January 20, 2025. It said:
BREAKING - Vice President JD Vance's wife will have her citizenship revoked if Trump signs his executive order banning birthright citizenship. Neither of her parents were US citizens at the time of her birth.
Here is what the post looked like at the time of writing
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Tue Jan 21 12:58:06 2025 UTC)
On January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term in office, Trump issued the Protecting The Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship Executive Order (archived here). The order challenged the long-standing interpretation of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (archived here) that anyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen:
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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Trump's executive order, which takes effect 30 days after it was signed, would restrict citizenship to children when both parents are either citizens or a "lawful permanent resident." Citizenship is not granted:
(1) when that person's mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person's father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth, or (2) when that person's mother's presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person's father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth.
The executive order does not mention situations where a child is born to one parent who has legal permanent status and the other parent does not.
The executive order only would affect "persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order," or February 19, 2025. So the new order clearly would not apply to Usha Vance, who was born January 6, 1986, according to IMDb, a film database that created a profile for Usha Vance because of the film made of her husband's memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" (archived here).
But were her parents U.S. citizens at the time of her birth? The Threads post claimed they were not.
According to her official White House biography (archived here), Usha Vance is a native of San Diego, but there are no details about her parents or their immigration history. Lead Stories emailed the vice president's office and will update this fact check with any response.
After her husband received the vice presidential nomination in 2024, the Times of India reported on July 17, 2024 (archived here), that Usha was the daughter of Lakshmi and Radhakrishna Chilukuri, who "moved to the US after their marriage."
Lakshmi Chilukuri is a biologist and provost at the University of California San Diego (archived here). Krish Chilukuri is a retired aerospace engineer and lecturer at San Diego State University (archived here).
Lead Stories reached out to both and will update this fact check with any response.
Under the Trump executive order, future children born to a parent in the U.S. under a student visa would not be automatically granted citizenship because visa holders are not considered permanent residents as defined by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (archived here):
Any person not a citizen of the United States who is living in the U.S. under legally recognized and lawfully recorded permanent residence as an immigrant. Also known as 'permanent resident alien,' 'resident alien permit holder,' and 'Green Card holder.'
For more Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving immigration, click here.
For more Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving citizenship, click here.
