Asked how the U.S. Men’s National Team’s success fits with the push to end birthright citizenship, House Speaker Mike Johnson linked the practice to “original intent,” accused it of being “abused,” and argued America must welcome immigration while those who co
On a day when the U.S. Men’s National Team’s run was drawing praise from every corner, House Speaker Mike Johnson was still stuck answering a question he clearly didn’t want to linger on: how to square America’s celebratory sports moment with an immigration fight built around birthright citizenship.
The reporter’s trigger point was concrete and immediate. At least three players on the USMNT have benefited from birthright citizenship, including top scorer Folarin Balogun. Balogun was born in New York City in 2001 to Nigerian parents who were traveling to the U.S. from London. Under those circumstances, he was granted U.S. citizenship.
Pressed by the question, Johnson delivered an answer that swung between constitutional history, the language of “abuse,” and an insistence that the country’s stance toward immigration should be both welcoming and strictly enforced.
“Like all good things, it can be abused, and birthright citizenship goes back to the root of the country, the history of the tradition,” Johnson said. He then pivoted to what he called the Constitution’s original intent and the conditions facing the founders.
“You look at the original intent of the Constitution and the founders and what they were doing, of course … they were facing a very different set of circumstances than we’re facing now.”
From there, Johnson accused birthright citizenship of being misused in recent years. He said “people have been literally just come over the border just to have a baby so that they can. you know. avail themselves of the social welfare system of America.” He described that as the “most benevolent nation in the history of the world. ” framing the policy debate as an argument about incentives and exploitation.
That line of thinking comes as President Trump. on the first day of his second term. issued an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants and temporary residents. The order was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court heard arguments against the policy earlier this spring.
Although justices appeared skeptical in April, Johnson projected confidence that the conservative court would accept the administration’s reasoning. He predicted the majority conservative court would view the dispute through the lenses of constitutional interpretation.
“They’re going to look at the arguments ‘as originalists, as they are, as textualists,’” Johnson said. “I think they’re also going to consider the factors that are at issue and the strength and stability of the country.”
The questioning returned to its original tension: how the administration can celebrate World Cup wins while pushing policies designed to restrict who is eligible for citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
Johnson rejected the idea that the positions conflict. “So I don’t think it’s inconsistent at all,” he said. “I think we can celebrate immigration — legal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants, as we all recognize.”
He offered a personal reference to family history to reinforce that distinction. “My grandfather came over on a boat from Sicily with eight siblings, and started a fruit stand — and I’m the Speaker of the House,” he said. “Only in America.”
But Johnson didn’t stop there. He said America embraces legal immigration as “part of our history,” then laid out the standard he believes newcomers must meet.
“Follow the spirit and the letter of the law,” he said, adding that immigrants should “assimilate to our country and not try to transplant Sharia law and all these other cra… things, and change who we are.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump’s birthright citizenship order could come “any day now,” with the uncertainty hanging over both the policy debate and the country’s broader arguments about immigration and identity. The next USMNT game is Thursday against Turkey.
Between Johnson’s courtroom confidence and the administration’s swift push—starting on day one of Trump’s second term—the stakes are no longer theoretical. They are tied to how citizenship is defined in practice. how families are treated at the border. and how a nation that cheers its athletes decides who belongs from the moment they’re born.
Mike Johnson birthright citizenship 14th Amendment Folarin Balogun USMNT Trump executive order undocumented immigrants temporary residents Supreme Court originalism textualism legal immigration World Cup