The US Supreme Court ruled this week that the twentieth-century interpretation of so-called “birthright citizenship”—i.e., the idea that virtually anyone born inside the territory of the United States is an automatic citizen—is to be upheld. This further solidifies into US law the idea that children born on US soil to visiting foreign nationals—among many other non-citizens—are granted citizenship automatically. 

Those who think that this decision will “settle” anything politically, however, are mistaken. Indeed, this decision—as with birthright citizenship in general—will increase political conflict over the presence of foreign nationals—both legal and illegal—within the United States. This is because birthright citizenship takes two separate phenomena—immigration and citizenship—and fuses them together. By combining the two, the imposition of birthright citizenship takes foreign nationals—who may be in the United States for non-political economic reasons such as employment—and turns those foreign nationals into politicalactors.

That is, the granting of citizenship turns private, non-political persons into participants in US political institutions. This is because the granting of citizenship is not primarily about legal residency or access to the legal system. It is not necessary to be a citizen, after all, to reside legally in the United States, or to file lawsuits, or to defend one’s self in court. It is already well established that the Bill of Rights applies to “persons” and not simply to “citizens.” In modern times, citizenship is really about the legal prerogative to participate in politics. Citizenship is about voting. 

Citizenship vs. Immigration

Contrary to what some self-proclaimed libertarians might say, support for private-property rights does not require support of the widespread granting of citizenship. After all, citizenship, is not any sort of natural right at all, as it does not stem from property ownership of self-ownership. Unlike private property, citizenship as a concept does not exist outside state institutions. One cannot homestead citizenship or privately contract for citizenship. The “right” to citizenship is very much unlike, say, a right to own a gun, or a right to be secure in one’s papers. Both of these are simply rights to purchase, own, and control one’s own property. 

Some libertarians have made some anemic and unconvincing attempts to claim that citizenship—by which is really meant the right to vote—is inseparable from one’s position on immigration. The claim is that citizenship is a critical procedural legal prerogative because voting........

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