‘A bombshell’: White House drops stunning historic documentation supporting Trump birthright citizenship order

The White House has dropped a stunning document showing that historically, the experts over the years never have considered those born of foreign parents in the United States to be U.S. citizens.

It’s the exact position President Donald Trump took when he issued an executive order months ago stating that children of illegal aliens are not, in fact, U.S. citizens.

He was sued immediately over that statement.

His perspective, if affirmed by the courts, would decimate the birth tourism industry, where foreigners break into the United States and have children, who then are considered citizens and anchors for their foreigner parents.

In fact, the Constitution calls people U.S. citizens if they are born in the United States “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

The current argument is over just exactly what constitutes being subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

A report at Revolver.news quotes from a filing from the White House in support of Trump’s order.

The government’s birthright brief has been filed. The most impressive part, which I hadn’t fully appreciated since my focus has been the common law, is the sheer number of commentators who presumed for decades that temporary visitors didn’t qualify for birthright citizenship: pic.twitter.com/AtjsRrr4MJ

— Ilan Wurman (@ilan_wurman) January 21, 2026

It quotes expert after expert after expert – all contemporaneous to the time the amendment was being considered, then adopted, and all of them offer explanations that those children of foreigners, of temporary residents or transient travelers passing through, are not U.S. citizens.

For example, Francis Wharton, in “A Treatise on the Conflict of Laws” from 1881, said, “Chinese born of Chinese non-naturalized parents, such parents not being here domiciled, are not citizens.”

Alexander Porter More, in the 1881 “A Treatise on Citizenship, said, “The words ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ exclude the children of foreigners transiently within the United States.”

Literally dozens of additional experts expressed like opinions.

For the last few decades, the prevailing thought has been born here, citizen here.

“And if you questioned that idea, it wasn’t just discouraged; you were branded some kind of unconstitutional traitor,” the Revolver report said.

“And as you likely know, President Trump is trying to put an end to this farce. The moment he signed the executive order ending birthright citizenship, the left rushed to court with lawsuits already locked and loaded. So now, the fight over what actually makes someone an American is officially underway.”

It described the new filing, with its pages and pages of evidence, “a bombshell nobody saw coming, not even the legal nerds.”

The White House, the report said, is “arguing history. And once you see what they put on the record, it’ll be clear to you why this entire ‘birthright’ debate has been shut down for so long.”

“What Team Trump put in front of the Supreme Court of the United States was a very long paper trail showing how birthright citizenship has been understood for decades after the 14th Amendment was ratified. And the catch is big. Because that understanding looks nothing like the version we’re living with today. The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that anyone born on US soil is automatically a citizen. It says citizenship applies to those born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

“Being ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ didn’t just mean being physically here. It meant a lot more. It meant allegiance and being fully under US authority… not just temporarily hanging out on a layover while having loyalty to another country,” the report said.

“According to the historical record laid out in the brief, legal scholars, judges, and commentators from the late 1800s into the early 1900s said the same thing over and over: children born to parents who were only temporarily in the United States were not automatically citizens. That means tourists, travelers, and foreign nationals just passing through were not treated as citizens by default.”

Other comments: William Edward Hall, “A Treatise on International Law,” 1895, “In the United States it would seem that the children of foreigners in transient residence are not citizens.”

Boyd Winchester, “Citizenship in Its International Relation,” 1897, “The requirement of personal subjection to the ‘jurisdiction thereof’ excludes ‘children of persons passing through or temporarily residing in this country.”

Henry Brannon, in the 1901, “Treatise on the Rights and Privileges Guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” said, “Mere birth within the American territory does not always make the child an American citizen … Such is the case with children of aliens born here while their parents are traveling or only temporarily resident.”