Marco Werman:But this ruling does not once and for all settle the fight over citizenship in the US, does it?

François Crépeau: Well, no, we can change the 14th Amendment. It’s always possible. You’ve had, in the US, quite a number of amendments that were fought over in the past decades, and that could be one if they want to fight that fight.

How do you think the June 30, 2026, Supreme Court decision will impact how the world thinks about the US?

The US has been for decades, if not centuries, the epitome of a welcoming society. Canada and Australia are, too. We have our flaws, all of us, but we were, you know, welcoming societies. We welcomed lots of immigrants. We defined ourselves as immigration countries, and birthright citizenship was part of the DNA of those immigration countries. That’s how we made sure that immigrants would integrate, integrate quickly, integrate effectively, become citizens despite, you know, their accents that would last for their whole lives, they would still be Americans or Canadians or Australians. And that is what is questioned today.

When it comes to how the US grants citizenship, it’s not the global norm. It’s part of a small group of countries, mostly in the Americas today, that still grants unconditional birthright citizenship. Why is that?

Because we had to people a land that was vast and was not very much populated. We grabbed those lands from the hands of the Indigenous peoples, that’s for sure. So, it was a land grab, but we wanted to people them. We wanted to become — the strength of a country was often calculated by the numbers, the number of its citizens, because those people could be drafted into armies and the size of the armies was important. Today it’s less so. Smart countries, I mean, Switzerland, for example, has a small population. It’s the equivalent of the population of Quebec, 8 million. But it’s an incredibly powerful country in terms of science and technology and finance, etc.

Why are we seeing more and more countries converge around restrictive definitions of citizenship?

Because of populist movements. Migrants themselves don’t vote and they rarely speak up. They rarely speak up because they fear being arrested, detained, deported. And they have invested so much in their immigration mission and venture that they won’t risk it by saying something stupid that could lead to them being arrested, detained and deported. So, migrants don’t push back and, we, citizens don’t push back. So, politicians can say whatever goes through their minds. And that’s what we’re hearing.

There are some interesting curiosities out there. I mean, in some countries around the globe, mothers cannot pass on their citizenship to the child if the father is a noncitizen. It’s true in many countries in the Middle East. What is the foundation of that?

Gender differentiation issues. You know, we still have differentiation between genders in terms of income, in terms of qualifications, in terms of how people are treated at work. And it’s true that on citizenship, it is quite traditional in, for example, the Middle East. It’s also traditional in China and in many other countries. It is changing, though. There is progress in many countries. Women are slowly winning those fights to be equal to men in terms of accessing citizenship, but there’s still a way to go.

How do you think this decision by the US Supreme Court will influence how other countries think about their own citizenship laws?

Even countries like Germany, for example, had only immigration by descent. You could only be German if your parents were German. They have changed. They have allowed people who were born in Germany from parents who were not German to become German. And so, there is an opening on that side, as well, because in the case of Germany, they have several millions of Turks — descendants of Turks but born in Germany — who were not becoming German. And so, Germany has changed its laws and allowed those to acquire German citizenship and to become dual citizens from Turkey, in particular, but also from other countries. And this is also a more liberal attitude toward citizenship, allowing these people to integrate and to participate. And if you participate and you have a stake in the political discussions, well, you tend to be better citizens. You feel integrated, you feel accepted, and you tend to thrive much more than if you are left on the margins. So, you have both movements.

Do you get the sense that we are in a new moment, one where increasingly around the world, citizenship is no longer seen as permanent and secure, even in long-established democracies?

That has been true in the past 10, 15 years. We’ve seen laws whereby governments have allowed themselves to withdraw citizenship from people who acquired it in previous years or decades. So, we’ve seen that. It used to be considered as a privilege, but a privilege that once acquired was permanent. It’s now less permanent. So yes, citizenship is not as secure as it used to be.

As this global debate continues, what are you going to be paying attention to?

I’m going to pay attention to how children of immigrants are able to access citizenship. What’s important is that immigrants themselves, it’d be a good thing, but children of immigrants should have access easily. Not necessarily by birthright. You can have access to citizenship. For example, in certain countries, if you’re born in the country, you can access citizenship at 18. You have a permanent resident status until then, and at 18 you can choose to become a citizen.

And where does that happen?

In France, for example. So, as long as there is a pathway to citizenship, that’s key.