Which members of the 118th Congress were born outside the U.S., and how do their biographies classify their citizenship at birth?
Executive summary
The 118th Congress included a small but noticeable contingent of foreign‑born lawmakers: major public tallies report 18 voting members born outside the United States — 17 in the House and one in the Senate — a figure highlighted by Pew Research and other observers [1][2]. Official legislative biographies and institutional profiles complicate that headline by distinguishing between being “foreign‑born” and being a U.S. citizen at birth, with some members born abroad to U.S. citizen parents and others who immigrated and later naturalized [3][4].
1. How many members were born outside the U.S., and where that number comes from
Pew Research’s analysis of 118th Congress biographies concluded there were 18 foreign‑born voting members — 17 Representatives and one Senator — and counted Mazie Hirono (D‑HI) as the lone foreign‑born senator, born in Japan [1][2]. That 18‑member tally is consistent across multiple Pew posts and media summaries of the 118th Congress’ demographics [1][2], though other institutional products note slightly different counts depending on methodology and timing: the Library of Congress’ CRS profile reported that “27 Representatives and five Senators” were born outside the United States in one excerpt, signaling definitional or data‑cut differences [3]. The House Clerk maintains a “Foreign Born” list that serves as an official roster for the chamber [5], and third‑party compilations such as Statista map the countries of origin for members identified as foreign‑born [6].
2. Why counts differ: citizenship at birth versus later naturalization
Discrepancies arise because public tallies use different rules for who counts as “foreign‑born” and whether being born to American parents abroad counts as “foreign‑born” for the purpose of the statistic. Pew’s published approach explicitly excludes people “born outside the U.S. to American parents” who acquired U.S. citizenship at birth from its immigrant count, focusing on those who were foreign‑born regardless of parental citizenship only when they were immigrants by residence or naturalization [1][2]. By contrast, the CRS and some congressional directories note that “some Members were born to American citizens working or serving abroad,” language that implies their place of birth is foreign but their biographies may classify them as U.S. citizens at birth [3][4]. The Senate historical directory similarly explains constitutional eligibility while noting the distinct status of those born abroad to U.S. parents [7].
3. How biographies classify “citizenship at birth” in practice
Congressional biographies and institutional summaries typically adopt one of three classifications: born abroad to U.S. citizen parent and therefore a U.S. citizen at birth; born abroad to non‑U.S. parents and later naturalized; or born in a U.S. territory or on a U.S. base (often excluded from foreign‑born tallies) [1][3]. Pew’s methodology and the Library of Congress profiles make clear that the public statistics reported (for example, the 18 foreign‑born figure) are shaped by these biographical distinctions: the tally reported in Pew excludes those who are citizens at birth through parentage, while CRS documentation flags that such cases exist and are treated differently in narrative and eligibility notes [1][3].
4. What’s known and what remains unclear
Public reporting reliably identifies Mazie Hirono as a senator born outside the U.S. (Japan) and places the total foreign‑born count at 18 in the 118th Congress [1][2], but a comprehensive, named list of all 118th Congress members with their exact birthplaces and the legal basis for their citizenship at birth is spread across sources — the House Clerk’s foreign‑born list, Pew’s dataset, and CRS/Library of Congress profiles — and is sensitive to the definitional choices each source makes [5][3][1]. Where sources disagree, the variation stems from whether being born abroad to U.S. citizens is counted as “foreign‑born” and from updates between mid‑Congress counts and end‑of‑term rolls [3][2].
5. Bottom line for readers evaluating claims
When seeing a headline that “X members of Congress are foreign‑born,” scrutinize whether the underlying source counts those born abroad to American parents as immigrants or as U.S. citizens at birth; Pew, CRS/Library of Congress, the House Clerk, and independent aggregators use different conventions and therefore produce different lists and totals [1][3][5]. For authoritative, name‑level verification consult the House Clerk’s “Foreign Born” PDF and individual congressional biographies, and note the methodological caveats in Pew’s and the Library of Congress’ reporting [5][1][3].