A single phrase in the 14th Amendment has shaped American citizenship for more than a century. Forgotten History’s latest episode asks whether that phrase still means what many Americans think it means.
In The Loophole That Changed America, host Colin D. Heaton examines the Citizenship Clause, the post-Civil War provision declaring that people born or naturalized in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens.
That phrase now sits at the center of the modern fight over birthright citizenship.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express in “Will SCOTUS Finally Stop Anchor Baby Citizenship? Inside Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Case,” President Donald Trump’s executive order challenged the long-standing interpretation that most children born on U.S. soil automatically receive citizenship, including children born to illegal aliens.
The order directed federal agencies not to recognize citizenship claims for certain children born in the United States when the mother was unlawfully present or temporarily present and the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Forgotten History’s episode steps back from the immediate legal fight and traces how the 14th Amendment became one of the most consequential and disputed provisions in the Constitution.
Heaton discusses the Supreme Court’s 1898 ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, the global rarity of automatic birthright citizenship, and the legal tension between a child’s citizenship and a parent’s immigration status.
The episode also examines birth tourism cases, immigration enforcement, family separation, and the broader question of whether modern interpretations of the Citizenship Clause match the amendment’s original meaning.
The issue is not framed as a simple legal technicality. Forgotten History presents it as a defining question over citizenship, constitutional text, and national sovereignty: Who automatically becomes an American, and who gets to decide?
Forgotten History is a 10th Legion Pictures production written and hosted by Heaton, a former history professor, U.S. Army veteran, and U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
Watch the full episode, The Loophole That Changed America, below.
