Did USCs Born in the U.S. lately (not to USC Parents) – Accidentally “Expatriate” for U.S. Tax Purposes? – per President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14160

Posted on April 23, 2025

The United States has respected citizenship for those born on U.S. soil, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the issue back in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.  We know that notwithstanding stare decisis, SCOTUS sometimes overturns its prior precedent.  See,  Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) overturning  Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984);  Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), overturing Roe v. Wade (1973); and Brown v. Board of Education (1954) overturning  Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).  

• President’s Executive Order 14160: Titled, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship

It provides in relevant part:

Sec. 2. Policy. (a) It is the policy of the United States that no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship, or accept documents issued by State, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize United States citizenship, to persons: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

(b) Subsection (a) of this section shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.

• SCOTUS Announced it Will Hear Arguments on May 15, 2025

See, SCOTUS order  – here, and reported here: Birthright citizenship cases to be heard at the Supreme Court in May

The Congressional Research Service has an excellent summary article it prepared in 2018, titled – The Citizenship Clause and “Birthright Citizenship”: A Brief Legal Overview (1 Nov. 2018).   This report was drafted when President Trump during his first term questioned the validity of “birthright citizenship”.  Below is an excerpt from that 2018 article, relevant to the:

Under federal law, nearly all people born in the United States become citizens at birth. This rule is known as “birthright citizenship,” and it derives from both the Constitution and complementary statutes and regulations. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states that “[a]ll 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 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), in turn, declares certain persons to be U.S. citizens and nationals at birth. INA § 301(a) more or less tracks the Citizenship Clause in stating that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a “national[] and citizen[] of the United States at birth.” (The INA also extends citizenship at birth to various persons not protected by the Citizenship Clause, such as those born abroad to some U.S. citizen parents.) Federal regulations—including those that govern the issuance of passports and access to certain benefits—implement the INA by providing that a person is a U.S. citizen if he or she was born in the United States, so long as the parent was not a “foreign diplomatic officer” at the time of the birth.

The report goes on to explain –

The weight of current legal authority suggests that these executive and legislative proposals to restrict birthright citizenship would contravene the Citizenship Clause. At least since the Supreme Court’s decision in the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the prevailing view has been that all persons born in the United States are constitutionally guaranteed citizenship at birth unless their parents are us born individuals foreign diplomats, members of occupying foreign forces, or members of Indian tribes. In Wong Kim Ark, the Court held that a man born in the United States in 1873 to parents who were Chinese nationals acquired citizenship at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. The parents were ineligible to naturalize under the law of the time, but they had established “permanent domicile and residence in the United States.” The Court reasoned that the Citizenship Clause should be “interpret[ed] in light of the common law” and grounded its holding in the common law principle of jus soli or “right of the soil.” Pursuant to that principle, “every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.”

• Tax Expatriation Consequences –

As to “tax expatriation” – of these individuals?  I suspect these babies (i.e., those born after 30 days from the executive order; on or after February 19, 2025) will have bigger issues to worry about other than their U.S. tax issues if SCOTUS rules against them.

Did USCs Born in the U.S. (not to USC Parents) – Accidentally “Expatriate” for U.S. Tax Purposes? – per  President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14160