OPINION: Birthright belonging is not a loophole

I’ve spent a lifetime in medicine — first as a surgeon, now as a coach and counselor to physicians across New Mexico and beyond.

Some of the doctors I work with were born in other countries. Some came here on visas. Some trained at U.S. hospitals while their families waited for green cards or naturalization paperwork.

And during those years of waiting — serving, studying, healing — some had children.

Their children were born here. In Albuquerque. In Las Cruces. In Roswell.

And under the 14th Amendment, those children are American citizens.

That’s not a glitch. It’s not a policy oversight.

It’s the quiet promise of birthright citizenship — a principle that has served this country for more than 150 years.

Lately, though, I’ve heard it questioned.

Some public figures have called to revoke it. To label it a loophole.

To say, in effect: Maybe not every child born here belongs here.

But I ask — gently, and from the depth of long experience — who are we to say that now?

Because I’ve watched immigrant physicians serve this state with everything they have.

They work in rural emergency rooms, public clinics, tribal health systems. They deliver babies, stabilize trauma, counsel the dying.

And often, they’ve done it while waiting in line to belong.

Their children were born during that waiting.

Those children became Americans. Not by lottery, not by privilege, but by place.

And yet now we hear this might be a problem.

Even as we remain silent about the many privileged families who benefited from the same rule.

Few mention that Donald Trump’s own children — Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric — were born in the U.S. while their mother, Ivana, was still a citizen of Czechoslovakia.

Or that Barron Trump was born when Melania was still a Slovenian national.

No one questioned their citizenship. Nor should they.

So what has changed?

The 14th Amendment reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.”

The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), ruling that a child born on U.S. soil — even to non-citizen parents — is a citizen.

That ruling wasn’t partisan. It was protective.

It was meant to guard against a country that would define belonging by bloodlines.

I know this might sound abstract. But it’s not.

It’s my patients. My colleagues. Their children. My children.

As a physician, I’m trained to recognize subtle signs before something breaks.

This is one of those signs.

If we begin to say that only some births count — only some families are worthy — then we are no longer talking about law.

We’re talking about inheritance.

And that’s not what this country is supposed to be.

Let’s not forget: The people caring for New Mexicans every day are often the very people whose families would be excluded under these new proposals.

Their children aren’t loopholes.

They’re part of us.