When I was a kid, I remember a radio show called Amicus Curiae. It followed a character who would intervene in court cases as a “friend of the Court.” I was drawn to the idea that anybody who felt she or he had something useful to say, could just come forward and say, “I am a friend of the Court and here is my opinion of what you have under consideration.”
[Of course, it’s more complicated than that. One needs permission to file amicus briefs.]
Thus, the economist in me was drawn to one of the amicus briefs that had been filed with the Supreme Court as it was considering whether to uphold or change the clear language of the 14th Amendment: “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.” The Trump Administration argued that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” creates a loophole that in effect allows the government to identify some people born in the U.S. as not automatically entitled to citizenship. Another aspect of the argument is that the framers of the 14th Amendment “didn’t mean” to include anyone but newly freed slaves when they referred to “all persons born… in the United States.” I was very pleased to see a clear five votes rejecting all of those arguments and stating that the 14th Amendment means what it says. Period!
The particular amicus brief that I want to discuss focused on the economic implications of ending birthright citizenship as well as some of the false arguments against birthright citizenship.
[Here is the text of the full brief]
Well footnoted, many of the economic arguments rely on the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Report from 2017: “The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration.”]
Here are a few passages:
“Birthright citizenship bolsters America’s economic health through macro-level impacts that are driven by U.S.-born second-generation mobility. Second-generation children born to immigrant parents, whose citizenship would be stripped by the Order, have a large, positive fiscal impact on the U.S. economy. According to the NASEM 2017 report, these second-generation individuals provide a net fiscal contribution to the U.S. of $85,000 (paying more in taxes than they receive in services) over their lifetimes. They also make higher long-term contributions, and have greater upward mobility, than their counterparts with native-born parents.
“These gains are a direct result of citizenship, which grants the children of immigrants increased job opportunities and higher wages and leads to increased tax revenue and decreased government spending.
“Citizenship increases the social and economic mobility of immigrants, their children, and later generations, promoting economic stability, workforce participation, economic growth, and increased fiscal contributions to the U.S.”
Let us remember that taking away birthright citizenship would immediately transform citizens into so-called illegals. That would have been the impact had the Supreme Court upheld the Executive Order issued by Trump immediately upon taking office in 2025.
[The text of the executive order]
The people submitting this brief argue that changing the status of these children would limit their abilities to make economic contributions to the US economy. These “…second-generation children born to immigrant parents, whose citizenship would be stripped by the Order, have a large, positive fiscal impact [as in increasing tax revenue] on the U.S. economy.” The brief notes that “… citizenship increases educational attainment, including by enabling students to afford college and resulting class mobility. Conversely, lacking legal status harms educational attainment, by delinking educational attainment from future job prospects and excluding students from lawful employment, financial support, and in some cases higher education. Research overwhelmingly shows that barriers to educational attainment create lifelong disadvantages and reduce earnings, decreasing future tax revenue and stifling innovation.”
I consider this argument really important. When the United States economy is functioning properly, there are a wide variety of opportunities for what economists and sociologists call upward mobility - in short, children having more economic success than their parents. This was never more apparent in the context of the Post WW II economic boom where a whole generation created the great American middle class.
[There are so many sources for this information: here is one such https://ips-dc.org/the-two-decades-that-created-our-worlds-first-mass-middle-class/]
Veterans of World War II came home and many went to college on the GI Bill and used government subsidies to buy their first home. Factory workers, miners and farmers saw their children and grandchildren go to college, move to the suburbs and buy cars and homes and other consumption items. The great American middle class was created between 1945 and the 1970s because of upward mobility. Consigning a significant number of the next generation to illegal status will seriously impede that upward mobility.
Another point they make which is tangentially connected to improvements in productivity is the fact that “… citizenship protects access to healthcare, while lacking citizenship or permanent status causes health harms from cradle to grave. Undocumented people are more likely to be denied insurance and thus have greater difficulty accessing preventative and acute healthcare. In contrast, citizenship decreases health harms, thus benefitting society more broadly.”
The health of our population determines the productivity of our workers. Years of productive contributions to the U.S. economy are lost when people die or become disabled prematurely.
The amicus brief presents detailed evidence in support of these claims but to be honest, I think most of the assertions in it are just common sense.
The brief also makes quick work of some of the assertions of supporters of ending birthright citizenship. One such is the idea that there is a giant tsunami of so-called “birth tourism” where expectant mothers travel to the United States just to give birth. This assertion is total nonsense. Such “tourism” represents an infinitesimal percentage of births. As good statisticians always try to impress upon us, “A sample of one proves nothing.” Yes, they are illustrative and if backed up by an honest statistical analysis can be useful – but not when they are used to suggest we should ignore the numbers and take a handful of particular examples as definitive.
Similarly, in response to a government assertion that so-called illegal immigration is a threat to public safety, the brief concludes that “ …. more than a century of empirical research on the relationship between immigration and crime reflects that there is no connection between immigration status and increased criminality.” Again, supporters of wholesale deportation of so-called illegals, find a specifically gruesome example of criminality on the part of a single undocumented immigrant and argue that it is evidence that the U.S. is threatened by hordes of criminals. The evidence to the contrary is clear. It is most unfortunate that individual examples make headlines, not the actual statistics of crime.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling where a five-person majority upheld birthright citizenship, a number of right-wing xenophobes went bonkers with unbelievably ridiculous arguments about what that ruling means.
Here's Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK): “After today’s abomination of a ruling, Chinese birth tourists can simply give birth to their kids in America, immediately return to China, never step foot in America again, mail in from China their kids’ ballots into American elections when they turn 18, and collect social security and other benefits of American citizenship the rest of their lives.” On its face this is crazy – imagine an American citizen child growing up in China. The only way someone like that could collect social security is if he or she worked for 10 years in a job for an American entity where they paid 10-years-worth of social security payroll taxes.
Or consider a statement from Mike Davis, a former Supreme Court law clerk: “Today’s birthright citizenship ruling by the Supreme Court is the most egregious, lawless violation of our most crucial sovereign power as American citizens … to determine who becomes one of us. There is no chance in hell we fought a civil war and enacted the 14th amendment to give birthright citizenship to the kids of birth tourists, terrorists, human traffickers, temporary visitors, and other illegals.” In fact, of course, the history of the 14th Amendment makes clear that the framers wanted it to apply to everyone born in the United States not just newly freed slaves. And of course, the non-citizen adults who have children in the U.S. are neither terrorists nor human traffickers.
I highly recommend reading the entire amicus brief on the economic implications of having birthright citizenship enshrined in the Constitution and the economic consequences that would follow if the Supreme Court had not concluded that the 14th Amendment means exactly what it says.
Addendum as of July 4. A number of incredibly xenophobic right-wingers have gone even further than the two people quoted above. One said that all pregnant women who come to the U.S. as tourists should be turned away. Another went so far as to demand that all women entering the U.S. be sterilized (I kid you not!!). Vice President Vance sounded the most dangerous note when he stated that this current decision is 5-4 which can be reversed just as Roe was reversed. In other words, he promised that if he were President he would appoint a Justice to overrule the recent ruling. Vance’s promise is an important fact that needs to be considered when voting in 2026 for Senator (they determine whether a Presidential appointee actually makes it onto the Supreme Court) and in 2028 for President.
Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies.
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