in effect
This is Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” signed January 20, 2025 and published in the Federal Register (90 FR 8449). It directs federal agencies to change how they treat birthright citizenship for certain children born in the United States, based on the order’s reading of the Fourteenth Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
It instructs federal departments and agencies to stop issuing documents that recognize U.S. citizenship — and to stop accepting such documents from state or local governments — for two groups of U.S.-born children: (1) those whose mother was unlawfully present in the country and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth, and (2) those whose mother was in the country lawfully but temporarily (for example, on the Visa Waiver Program or a student, work, or tourist visa) and whose father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth. This applies only to children born more than 30 days after the order’s date. It names the Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Commissioner of Social Security to align their rules with it, and requires all agency heads to issue public implementation guidance within 30 days. For this order, “mother” and “father” are defined as the immediate female and male biological parents.
The direct subjects are children born in the U.S. after the 30-day mark whose parents fall into the two described categories; for them, federal agencies would not issue or honor citizenship documents such as passports or Social Security records. The order states it does not change the citizenship documentation of anyone else, specifically including children of lawful permanent residents. The federal agencies named must revise their regulations and policies, though the order says it creates no new legal rights enforceable against the government.