Mid-Air Birth Flies Home How Stupid Birthright Citizenship Is

To borrow from comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s famous redneck schtick, if you were born on a flight over U.S. air space, you might be a U.S. citizen. 

The latest birthplace debate underscores just how insanely stupid sweeping birthright citizenship has become in the modern age. And it’s another example of why the U.S. Supreme Court needs to fix a flawed 130-year-old interpretation of the Constitution. 

A 'Child Born on a Plane'

Multiple corporate outlets had some fun reporting on the “stork” story of a passenger who gave birth over the weekend during a flight from Jamaica to New York City.  The Caribbean Airlines flight “landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy international airport with one more person than it took off with,” the liberal Guardian guffawed.

As the cheeky piece explained, the citizenship status of the newborn remained up in the air because officials had yet to make clear the citizenship status of the parents — “and where the plane was at the exact moment the baby was born.” The child would, of course, automatically be a U.S. citizen if either parent is a U.S. citizen. If not, it depends on precisely where the birth occurred. If the answer is within 12 nautical miles of the U.S. coastline, the newborn just won the U.S. citizenship lottery.