Steve Wang: Should Citizenship Be Given at Birth

By: Steve Wang

Fairness. This is something that most people care for a lot. One of the things people think about when thinking about fairness is citizenship. Is it fair that citizenship is given at birth. Should it be earned. This topic is very heavily disputed and has been for many years now. I have done my research on the pros and cons of this decision. Then, I have formed a conclusion.

In this essay, I will mainly be using America as an example because, on the internet a lot of the information is about America. Another reason is, if you are born in America, you can get American citizenship. There are many pros to giving citizenship at birth. One of them is, no matter who the parents are, the child will always be a citizen of a country. An added benefit is it will not cause a split between newly migrated citizens. This would also encourage young immigrants to live there. This is good because most of the population are old people and now, less young people want to have kids. So, young new talent is very valuable to the country. Some may argue that it would waste the country's resources to give them citizenship so they should not be given citizenship at birth. However, not doing so would create a humanitarian crisis, a situation which threatens a large group of people(ProCon.org). Even though there are a lot of pros to giving citizenship at birth, there are also major cons.

An example is, many might go to other countries illegally to have babies because, in places like America, if their child is born there, they get American citizenship. This is a serious issue because in 2016, about 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in the United States(PASSEl et al.). As a result of that problem, people might be even more encouraged to illegally immigrate. The people of the country would also feel that it is unfair because, why should illegal immigrants be rewarded(ProCon.org)?

In conclusion, there are both pros and cons to giving citizenship at birth. After understanding that, I still think citizenship should be given at birth. Not the citizenship of their birthplace but the citizenship of their parents. This way, illegal immigration will stop and the newborn children will also be able to become the citizen of a country. Which will ensure that in most countries, the right to vote, to hold public office, to social security, to health services, to public education, to permanent residency, to own land, or to engage in employment, and many more(Council of Europe).

After understanding both the pros and cons of giving citizenship at birth, and the solution to that problem, your opinions may or may not have been changed. However, things are unlikely to change because of politics. Moving forward, we should just accept that this is how things are going to be for now. Unfairness is part of life. This is one of the situations where things will probably continue being unfair.

1. ProCon.org. (2018, October 31). Birthright Citizenship Debate: Should Children Born on US Soil to Undocumented Immigrants Automatically Have US Citizenship? - Immigration—ProCon.org. Britannica ProCon.Org. https://immigration.procon.org/questions/birthright-citizenship-debate-should-children-born-on-us-soil-to-undocumented-immigrants-automatically-have-us-citizenship/
2. PASSEL, J. S., COHN, D., & GRAMLICH, J. (2018, November 1). U.S. births to unauthorized immigrants have fallen since 2007 | Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/01/the-number-of-u-s-born-babies-with-unauthorized-immigrant-parents-has-fallen-since-2007/
3. Council of Europe. (n.d.). Citizenship and Participation. Council of Europe. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/citizenship-and-participation