Which members of Congress sponsor or oppose the Born in America Act and why?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
The Born in the USA Act was introduced by Senator Jacky Rosen and a slate of Senate Democrats to block implementation of President Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order targeting birthright citizenship and to prohibit federal funds being used to enforce it [1] [2]. Its principal sponsors cast the measure as a constitutional defense; Republican legislators and other conservatives have instead pursued separate statutes and executive actions to restrict automatic citizenship at birth, framing reform as a matter of sovereignty and immigration control [3] [4].
1. Who officially sponsors the Born in the USA Act and what do they say they want to stop?
Senator Jacky Rosen led introduction of the Born in the USA Act and listed nine Democratic co‑sponsors — Senators Dick Durbin, Brian Schatz, Chris Van Hollen, Richard Blumenthal, Alex Padilla, Catherine Cortez Masto, Jeanne Shaheen, Cory Booker, and Peter Welch — explicitly to block President Trump’s executive order that attempted to limit birthright citizenship and to prohibit use of federal funds to implement that order [1] [2]. Rosen and her co‑sponsors characterize the measure as a straightforward defense of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens” and as a congressional rebuke to what they call an unconstitutional unilateral presidential action [1] [2].
2. Which members of Congress oppose the Born in the USA Act, and what legislation are they advancing instead?
Opposition to Rosen’s bill comes largely from Republican lawmakers pursuing legislative and executive routes to change birthright rules; notable among these are Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Brian Babin, who introduced competing proposals called the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 in the Senate (S.304) and House (H.R.569) aimed at curtailing automatic citizenship for some U.S.‑born children [3] [5]. Senator Graham’s office circulated a draft statute and explanatory text to narrow birthright citizenship definitions, and these Republican bills mirror President Trump’s executive approach of restricting jus soli (birth‑based) citizenship on policy grounds [6] [4].
3. Why do sponsors and opponents say they support their positions?
Democratic sponsors frame the Born in the USA Act as a constitutional safeguard and a fiscal stopgap — blocking funding for what they deem an unlawful executive order — and emphasize continuity of longstanding constitutional interpretation [1] [2]. Republican sponsors of the Birthright Citizenship Act and allied supporters argue that limiting citizenship by birth corrects what they see as legal overreach and helps control immigration and perceived incentives for unlawful entry, language made explicit in the White House executive order and Republican bill texts [4] [6].
4. How has misinformation and naming confusion complicated the record?
A burst of viral social posts used the phrase “Born in America Act” or claimed a different “Born in America Act” had passed, allegedly removing naturalized officeholders; fact‑checkers including Snopes and MEAWW found no congressional bill by that exact viral name and debunked claims about immediate mass resignations, noting Congress.gov had no matching record for those assertions [7] [8]. Meanwhile, multiple similarly named measures exist in public records — including Rosen’s Born in the USA Act on Congress.gov and separate Republican bills titled Birthright Citizenship Act — creating fertile ground for confusion and deliberate amplification [9] [10] [3].
5. What does the reporting leave unanswered or ambiguous?
The sources document who introduced the Rosen bill and its Democratic co‑sponsors and identify Republican alternatives and the White House executive order, but they do not provide a comprehensive roll call of every member who explicitly opposes Rosen’s bill in public statements, nor an exhaustive list of GOP cosponsors for the competing measures in the House and Senate beyond the lead sponsors [1] [3]. Similarly, fact‑checks show viral claims about a passed “Born in America Act” were false, but available reporting does not catalogue every instance of disinformation or quantify how many lawmakers publicly endorsed the viral narrative [7] [8].