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Oftentimes hard to model this from other nations. Here in Australia we have pretty well understood applicability of federal law everywhere, but when the states started enacting changes in abortion law, voluntary assisted dying, decriminalisation of recreational drugs, it all got a bit messy. Especially since we have non-state territories where enacting laws means .. conditional to the federal government with lower barriers than with the states.

Britain its mostly UK Law, with bits of "no, thats English law, this is Scotland" on top. I emigrated so long ago the national appeals structure has changed and I don't entirely understand when it applies and overrides. But immigration is clearly nation-wide.

I think "birthright" citizenship is pretty alien to most legal regimes. Ireland might be the one people think about in the Europe/Britain context. Used to be a lot of pregnant women flying in late stage. But, thats not to call it wrong or decry what the appeals in the US were trying to do. It was amended into the constitution a very long time ago, and until recently what the current WH is trying to do was seen as "fringe law" but now seems core.






In my opinion, birthright citizenship is undesirable. Like you said, it's fairly unique to America and largely exists for historical reasons.

However, there is no just world where you can revoke citizenship from existing Americans. Especially under the vague terms they used.

Furthermore, the constitution itself is what defines it in clear language. Birthright citizenship can only be changed via constitutional amendment.


The revocation is chilling, yes. Australia has regrettably been behaving of late as if ending your prison sentence is not the end, and deporting dual nationals to their native citizenship after sentence completed. It's just cruelty, and in many cases makes externalities of Australian problems.

Some people with no lived experience of "homeland" have been sent "back there" and in related cases, Australian indigenous have been threatened with never having had citizenship because of association with neighbouring countries. The courts came down pretty heavily on that one thank goodness.


asking in a narrower context than before: what happens when an Nth generation american is forced to prove their ancestors came to the country legally under threat of being stripped of the only citizenship they’ve ever had ? i doubt most people can produce documentation reaching back several generations…

see the following [1]doj enforcement priority on stripping citizenship ; i guess conceivably a citizen could be in a situation of having to prove that some ancestor didn’t lie on their naturalization application

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalizatio...





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