Two Senate bills would limit birthright citizenship in USVI

Two different pieces of legislation now pending in Congress would narrow birthright citizenship protections in the U.S. Virgin Islands and other American territories, each taking a distinct approach to the same policy goal.

Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma introduced Senate Bill 5667 on September 30. The measure, titled the Ending Birthright Citizenship in U.S. Territories Act, would amend federal immigration law to exclude citizenship at birth for children born in U.S. territories when their mothers lack lawful presence and their fathers are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents. Both parental conditions must be present for the exclusion to apply. The bill was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and remains there.

The Senate proposal differs markedly from legislation filed earlier in the year. Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia introduced H.R. 9724 in July, which would instead establish a January 1, 2027 cutoff date for citizenship eligibility across the territories. Griffith's bill would amend the specific citizenship provisions governing the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Under Lankford's narrower language, a child born to an unlawfully present mother and a U.S. citizen father would retain citizenship rights. The Senate bill does not include a delayed implementation date or specify procedures for verifying parental immigration status.

Griffith's House measure has drawn scrutiny from territorial advocacy groups. Neil Weare, co-director of Right to Democracy, expressed concern that the operative language in the House bill "do not contain any limiting language and could deny citizenship to anyone born in a territory moving forward." Weare noted that while the bill includes exceptions for children of U.S. citizens or permanent residents, those protections do not appear in the amendment text itself.

The Senate bill takes what supporters might view as a more targeted approach, specifying the parental circumstances that would trigger exclusion rather than imposing a blanket cutoff date.

Neither measure has advanced beyond committee stage. Both would require passage by both chambers of Congress and the president's signature to become law. Currently, children born in the Virgin Islands receive automatic citizenship regardless of their parents' immigration status.