A new paper from a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign expert who studies immigration law and labor issues argues that the birthright citizenship principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution emerged from the Colonial-era adoption of permissive citizenship policies to gain a competitive labor advantage with foreigners and their U.S.-born children.

Birthright citizenship, which automatically confers U.S. citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, has served pragmatic economic purposes for ambitious empires-in-the-making as far back as the ancient Romans, said Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor and employment relations and law (affiliated faculty) at Illinois.

Read more about the paper at news.illinois.edu.