GOP Senator Sounds Alarm: Are Diplomats’ Children Illegally Receiving U.S. Citizenship?

A Republican senator is sounding the alarm on what he believes is a back-door citizenship scheme, demanding a federal investigation into whether thousands of children born to foreign diplomats have illegally obtained U.S. passports and Social Security numbers.

In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said the practice violates the Constitution and poses national security risks.

“We cannot allow [American citizenship] to be cheapened into a mere bureaucratic status to be usurped by diplomats and foreign functionaries who owe their allegiance to other countries,” Schmitt, Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, wrote.

Citizens must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, according to the Constitution. Schmitt argued that foreign diplomats, who remain under the jurisdiction of their home governments, fall outside that category, meaning their children are not entitled to birthright citizenship. Even the Supreme Court’s controversial Trump v. Barbara ruling, which preserved birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, agreed that diplomats’ kids are flat-out excluded.

According to Schmitt, state birth certificates don’t even include a box to indicate whether a parent is a foreign diplomat. Hospitals don’t ask, and the Social Security Administration doesn’t care. Foreign VIPs get their babies standard U.S. birth certificates and Social Security numbers, allowing them to function as “citizens” for life.

Schmitt blamed the Obama and Biden administrations for fueling the chaos. Under Obama, clear rules banning diplomats’ kids from citizenship were replaced with “guidance.” Meanwhile, Biden’s State Department stopped publishing the “Blue List” and “White List” of official diplomats, making verification more difficult.

“Allowing diplomats’ children to claim birthright citizenship violates the Constitution, statutory law, and decades of judicial and administrative practice,” he wrote. “We cannot allow it to be cheapened into a mere bureaucratic status to be usurped by diplomats and foreign functionaries who owe their allegiance to other countries.”

The letter comes as Schmitt leads a congressional charge to overhaul birthright citizenship entirely, introducing a new bill and a constitutional amendment to shut down “birth tourism” and put Americans first.