State Department Drafts Rule Requiring Parents to Prove Citizenship for Child Passports

The State Department has drafted guidance that would require parents applying for a passport for their US-born child to prove their own citizenship or immigration status first, according to Reuters, which reviewed the draft. The Trump administration plans to enforce an August 6 executive order targeting what it calls "birth tourism."

Right now the process is simple. Parents prove parentage, show photo ID, and check a box saying whether they're US citizens. No supporting documents required.

Under the draft proposal, that changes. Parents would need to hand over a valid US passport, a birth certificate, an I-94 form, or a green card, depending on their status. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told Reuters the change is about making sure "our passport adjudication process fully reflects" the standard that citizenship has value and meaning.

A Narrower Second Try

This isn't Trump's first swing at birthright citizenship. His original executive order tried to deny automatic citizenship to any child unless at least one parent was a US citizen or green card holder. Lower courts blocked the order, and in June 2025 the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling in Trump v. CASA, limited the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions — but the justices did not rule on the underlying constitutional question of whether the order violates the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. That substantive question remains unresolved and continues to be litigated in lower courts.

The August 6 order is built differently. It doesn't touch children of parents who are simply undocumented or here temporarily. Instead it targets three narrower categories, cited under executive order number 14418: children of parents working for a foreign government in the US, children born through fraud or a commercial transaction meant to secure citizenship, and children of parents classified as an "alien enemy."

Conservative legal scholars told Fox News this version has a real shot. Chad Mizelle of the America First Policy Institute pointed to Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 Supreme Court case that first defined birthright citizenship, and noted it already carved out exceptions for children of diplomats and children born during hostile military occupation. The administration's argument is that foreign terrorist organization members fall into that same "alien enemy" bucket.

A Judge Says "Unprecedented"

Immigrant advocacy groups aren't buying it. They argue in court filings that the new order is, in their words, "in defiance" of the Supreme Court's ruling and that the administration simply doesn't have the constitutional power to strip citizenship the 14th Amendment already confers. It's the same core claim that has been central to the fight over Trump's first order.

On August 28, US District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland, an appointee of President Biden, declined to issue a temporary restraining order blocking the new directive, according to the Epoch Times. Her reasoning was narrow: the plaintiffs' original lawsuit never mentioned Trump's newer order, so she couldn't block something the complaint didn't cover. But she let the groups amend their case and set a fast briefing schedule for a fresh challenge.

Boardman said, "As far as I can tell, this is unprecedented," describing the order as an attempt to "strike out exceptions to birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen." She also pressed government lawyers on where exactly the Supreme Court's ruling carved out a birth tourism exception, a question they didn't fully answer since the agencies hadn't even issued implementation guidance yet at that point.

That guidance is exactly what surfaced this week. The order itself could still be blocked in court, according to Reuters, and the amended lawsuit before Boardman is moving on an expedited timeline.

The Industry Behind the Push

The administration's broader case rests on the claim that birth tourism is a real, sizable business. Breitbart reported an estimated 33,000 US-born children get automatic citizenship each year through parents who arrive on temporary visas, often tourist visas, specifically to give birth. Breitbart also cited a 2019 Department of Justice case in California involving roughly 8,500 children born to parents who'd entered the country the same way.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), who chairs a House Oversight task force on the issue, held a hearing where Dr. Wladimir Lorentz, founder of a Miami-based birth tourism agency called Have My Baby, pleaded the Fifth Amendment to every question, citing a pending federal investigation into his business, according to Breitbart. Lorentz said his silence shouldn't be read as an admission of wrongdoing. No charges have been filed against him or his company, and no investigation findings have been made public.

The core question remains unresolved: can an executive order redefine who the 14th Amendment covers, or is that strictly Congress's or the courts' call? Boardman's expedited briefing schedule means a more substantive ruling on the new order could come within weeks, and whatever she decides is almost certain to be appealed.