Most Countries in the Western Hemisphere Have Some Sort of Birthright Citizenship

The ratification of the 14th Amendment meant that, as of the late 1860s, anyone who was born in the United States was a citizen of the country (with a few notable exceptions). That right, known as birthright citizenship, was recently challenged at the Supreme Court by the Trump administration.

Birthright citizenship is something that many in the U.S. take for granted, but it's not a right that exists in every country. Following the arguments at the Supreme Court, some people wanted to know which countries offer it, and which don't. Here's what we know.

According to Pew, there are 32 other countries with birthright citizenship laws that are similar to the U.S. Another roughly 50 countries have laws that are more limited, but offer some of the same protections.

It's notable historically that many of the countries that offer birthright citizenship are in the Western hemisphere, which may speak to the history of those countries and the way citizenship was often contested when they were colonies.

The countries with birthright citizenship laws similar to the U.S. include: Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Bolivia, Argentina, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Brazil, Dominica, Ecaudor, Benin, Chad, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mozambique, Lesotho, Guatemala, Grenada, Guyana, Paikstan, Nicaragua, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Peru, Panama, Venezuela, Uruguay, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Peru, Tuvalu, and Trinidad and Tobago.

As is the case in the United States, most countries have multiple ways of acquiring citizenship. In the U.S., birthright citizenship was deemed necessary chiefly because of America's history with slavery, which had created an underclass that was denied many of the basic rights of citizenship. Slaves, who were not citizens, could now have children who were because of the 14th Amendment.

Birthright citizenship is just one way that countries around the world determine who is a citizen. In other countries, that determination is often made based on the citizenship status of a person's parents. Outside of the 33 countries (including the U.S.) that offer automatic citizenship at birth, some countries offer birthright citizenship only to children whose parents were in the country legally at the time of their birth.

In still other countries, parents are required to apply for citizenship for their children after they are born. And in some countries, birthright citizenship is only extended to a portion of the population (a particular ethnicity or class that has been defined legally).

Solicitor General D. John Sauer suggested that there were many countries that did not confer birthright citizenship as part of his argument on behalf of the Trump administration's position.

In response, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked, “Why should we be thinking about the many other countries in the world [that] don’t have this?” He added that the Supreme Court's job was to make determinations on American law in American contexts. Birthright citizenship might not be a global right, but for more than 100 years, it has been a right conferred on Americans.