The Deborah Boardman birthright citizenship ruling is drawing new attention as the Trump administration considers a passport rule that could require parents to prove their own citizenship or immigration status when applying for passports for their children. The draft would sit inside the State Department's passport adjudication process, but the administration has not finalized it.
Tommy Pigott on passport adjudication
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said, "President Trump has been unequivocal that this Administration will protect the meaning and value of American citizenship, full stop, and that includes making sure our passport adjudication process fully reflects that standard." Pigott also said the department does not validate or chase leaked documents, a line that leaves the draft in circulation but not yet in force.
The draft guidance says, "The Department will require parental information and evidence of parental citizenship or immigration status as part of its determination whether the applicant is subject to EO 14418." Parents applying for passports for U.S.-born children generally already provide proof of the child's U.S. citizenship, evidence of their relationship to the child and photo identification. What would change is the additional request for the parents' own status documents.
Dave Aronberg on lawsuits
Dave Aronberg, the former Palm Beach County State Attorney, said the proposal could run into serious constitutional problems if it is used to decide whether a U.S.-born child is entitled to citizenship or a passport. He said, "The Fourteenth Amendment says that people born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens at birth, and the Supreme Court has interpreted that protection broadly for more than a century," and added, "If this policy is formally implemented, I would absolutely expect immediate lawsuits."
Aronberg said, "The core argument will be pretty simple: an executive branch agency cannot rewrite the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution through passport paperwork." That is the practical fault line for parents: a document request alone may be one thing, but using it to block a passport for a citizen child would invite immediate litigation.
Neama Rahmani's constitutional line
Neama Rahmani, the former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, drew a narrower line. He said requiring parents to provide documentation is not necessarily unconstitutional by itself, but denying a passport to a U.S.-born citizen because of a parent's immigration status could present a much more serious constitutional problem.
The Trump administration is still only considering the rule, so the immediate question for families is whether the draft becomes formal passport policy at all, and if it does, how far the State Department would take the parental-documentation requirement when it reviews children born in the United States.
