Which members of Congress sponsored the Born in the USA Act and the Birthright Citizenship Act, and what were their stated rationales?
Executive summary
Two competing 2025-era bills frame the congressional fight over birthright citizenship: the Birthright Citizenship Act — introduced in the Senate by Sen. Lindsey Graham and in the House by Rep. Brian Babin — seeks to narrow who is treated as a citizen at birth, arguing to end automatic citizenship for children of some noncitizen parents [1] [2], while the Born in the USA Act is a pro–birthright bill that the text describes as affirming constitutional protections and rejecting an opposite executive action; the publicly available texts show the Born in the USA Act’s purpose but the sources provided do not list an explicit sponsor name for that bill [3] [4].
1. Who sponsored the Birthright Citizenship Act — names and chambers
The Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–South Carolina) as S.304 and in the House by Rep. Brian Babin (R–Texas) as H.R.569, according to bill summaries and sponsor listings cited in reporting and advocacy summaries [1] [5] [2].
2. Who sponsored the Born in the USA Act — what the record shows and what it does not
Congressional texts and summaries for the Born in the USA Act appear as S.646 in the Senate and H.R.3368 in the House, and those legislative texts make the bill’s purpose explicit — to enshrine that birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law and to respond to an executive order attempting to deny certain children recognition as citizens — but the specific sponsor name for S.646/H.R.3368 are not present in the provided source snippets, so this reporting cannot definitively state which member of Congress formally introduced the bill [3] [4].
3. The Birthright Citizenship Act — stated rationale from its sponsors
Sponsors of the Birthright Citizenship Act articulate a rationale centered on restricting automatic jus soli citizenship for children born to parents who lack certain legal statuses; Graham’s Senate filing and Babin’s House filing frame the legislation as ending “the long-standing, constitutional practice of granting United States citizenship to U.S.-born children” irrespective of parental immigration status and instead tying citizenship at birth to parents who are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or certain lawful non‑U.S. nationals [1] [2] [5].
4. The Born in the USA Act — stated rationale in the bill text and its stated purpose
The Born in the USA Act’s text repeatedly affirms that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and by federal law (8 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.), explicitly cites United States v. Wong Kim Ark , and condemns and seeks to override the policy in President Trump’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order 14160 that purports to deny citizenship to certain U.S.-born children; the legislative text therefore situates the bill as a defensive measure to protect existing constitutional and statutory guarantees of citizenship and to deny any legal effect to the Executive Order [3] [4] [6].
5. How each sponsor framed the problem and the underlying legal claims
Proponents of the Birthright Citizenship Act argue that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Fourteenth Amendment should be read to exclude some children born to noncitizen parents and that statutory definition is needed to limit automatic citizenship — language and summaries of H.R.569 and S.304 characterize the bill as an effort to end what they call an expansive practice of jus soli citizenship [1] [2]. By contrast, the Born in the USA Act’s text asserts the opposite legal claim: that birthright citizenship has long been established by the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmed in Wong Kim Ark, and protected by federal statute and therefore cannot be rescinded by executive order or reinterpretation; that bill positions itself as a safeguard of constitutional norms [3] [4].
6. Limits of available reporting and alternative viewpoints
The provided sources clearly identify Lindsey Graham and Brian Babin as sponsors of the Birthright Citizenship Act [1] [2] and include full legislative text and summaries for both bills [3] [4] [7], but the specific sponsor name for the Born in the USA Act are not visible in the snippets provided here, so the record in this packet cannot attribute that bill to an individual lawmaker; legal scholars and civil‑rights organizations cited in the materials emphasize that long-standing precedent and statute protect broad jus soli citizenship, an argument the Born in the USA Act mirrors, while sponsors of restrictionist bills press a conflicting statutory reinterpretation [3] [8] [9].