Rand Paul

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul announced Thursday that he would be introducing a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship.

“Under current interpretations of American law, anyone born on American soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen, regardless of whether the parent was here legally or not,” Paul wrote in a lengthy post on X. “This is wrong and not at all the intent of those who wrote the 14th Amendment.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about what defines birthright citizenship.

The amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.”

Some argue that the 14th Amendment only applied to grant citizenship to formerly enslaved people and not children of illegal migrants. Others interpret it as anyone, no matter what the parents’ status is, is a U.S. citizen as long as the child is born in the U.S.

“We are a country filled with immigrants, and legal immigration is valuable and should be protected,” Paul said. “But we are also a country whose borders have been too open and our generosity exploited too often. President Trump has moved to seal our border from illegal immigrants more than any other president.”

Paul said that only children born to legal U.S. citizens become citizens right away.

“I have supported protecting birthright citizenship from the beginning of my tenure in the Senate, when I cosponsored the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011, and now I am proposing an amendment to protect United States citizenship in case the Supreme Court fails to address this issue correctly,” his post concluded.