Nevada AG Aaron Ford Weaponizes Black History Month to Double Down on Birthright Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) used Black History Month to champion birthright citizenship in a video posted to his official X account, tying the 14th Amendment’s legacy to the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans. “Birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, affirmed that formerly enslaved people and their descendants are full citizens,” Ford declared in the 49-second clip from his office podium. “This Black History Month, we honor that legacy and reaffirm the Nevada Attorney General’s commitment to defending our constitutional rights,” and noted, “every person born on American soil is an American.”

Birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, affirmed that formerly enslaved people and their descendants are full citizens. This Black History Month, we honor that legacy and reaffirm the Nevada Attorney General’s commitment to defending our constitutional rights. pic.twitter.com/ECjSt5kMeD

— NV Attorney General (@NevadaAG) February 13, 2026

With Black History Month as cover, Ford is once again prioritizing open-border ideology over the real-world burdens illegal immigration places on Nevada families — strained schools, overwhelmed hospitals, skyrocketing housing costs, and public safety threats.

Ford, a Democrat eyeing a 2026 gubernatorial run against Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, has positioned himself as a fierce foe of President Donald Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order No. 14160, which seeks to end automatic citizenship for children of illegal aliens by reinterpreting the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause. Ford joined a 17-state coalition, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, in a federal lawsuit challenging the order as unconstitutional. He celebrated a First Circuit injunction in October 2025 and a Massachusetts district court’s nationwide block in July, vowing to “protect all Nevadans’ constitutional rights, and by all Nevadan’s he includes those who are residing here illegally.

Nevada’s undocumented population—estimated at 199,000 (nearly 10 percent of the Nevada population, but who really knows…) by the Migration Policy Institute’s 2023 data—comprises about 10 percent of the workforce, the nation’s highest rate, due to our porous southern borders under the Biden administration and our border with the sanctuary state of California.

According to reports, Nevada has seen an increase of 562 percent in the state’s illegal immigrant population since 2021.

Legal scholars across the conservative spectrum have long argued that children of illegal immigrants — whose parents are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in the full sense — do not qualify under the original public meaning. Trump’s EO argues that unrestricted birthright citizenship encourages illegal entries and “birth tourism,” where foreign nationals game visas for U.S.-born citizenship.

California exemplifies these abuses, serving as a notorious hub for Chinese birth tourism. Pregnant women from China flock to the Golden State on B-1/B-2 tourist visas, paying $40,000–$100,000 for “maternity hotel” packages covering housing, prenatal care, and visa coaching in areas like Orange and Los Angeles counties. Federal raids in 2015 and 2018 shuttered dozens of operations, yielding indictments for visa fraud and money laundering; one prosecutor estimated the schemes birthed around 30,000 Chinese citizens over years.

High-profile busts underscore the scale. In 2024, Rancho Cucamonga couple Michael Wei-Yueh Liu and Jing “Phoebe” Dong were convicted for their “USA Happy Baby” racket (2012–2015), aiding hundreds of clients at $40,000–$65,000 a pop and pocketing millions before 41-month sentences for conspiracy and laundering. A January 2025 plea by Irvine’s Dongyuan Li, part of a 19-defendant ring, highlighted the vast, Chinese birth tourism networks.

Even more alarming is the 2025 Arcadia scandal in the San Gabriel Valley (near Pasadena and San Marino), where Chinese immigrants Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang were arrested on child endangerment charges after a 2-month-old in their care suffered suspicious head injuries. Authorities raided their 10,000-square-foot gated mansion, rescuing 21 young children—most born via U.S. surrogates—prompting neighbors to liken it to a “kindergarten.” Xuan, the household patriarch with reported ties to Chinese Communist Party-linked businessmen through his real estate ventures, allegedly orchestrated a “population project” via their Mark Surrogacy agency, deceiving at least six surrogates who later sought custody. Investigations revealed additional surrogate-born children in other states, plus Xuan’s ownership of El Monte properties tied to gambling and drugs, raising national security red flags over foreign influence in birthright exploitation.

These cases echo cross-border controversies, like Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda’s 2022 U.S. birth for her child, slammed as elitist “birth tourism.”

Ford’s nod to the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause—”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens…”—correctly roots it in 1868’s post-Civil War push to grant citizenship to freed slaves, overturning Dred Scott. But his portrayal as an unassailable shield for all U.S.-born ignores the “jurisdiction” caveat, never squarely ruled on for illegal aliens by the Supreme Court.

The 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark affirmed citizenship for a child of legal Chinese residents but exempted those not owing “complete allegiance,” like diplomats or invaders—leaving illegal entrants ambiguous. Framers like Sen. Jacob Howard excluded “foreigners, aliens” in debates, a point echoed in amicus briefs for Trump’s EO.

Lower courts blocked the EO via injunctions, but on December 5, 2025, SCOTUS granted cert in Barbara v. Trump, scheduling April 1 arguments and a summer ruling that could limit birthright to children of citizens or legal residents. Ford may cast reformers as racists, yet the fight is jurisdictional, not racial. Unchecked birthright citizenship enables scams like CCP-linked birth tourism operations and poses a grave threat to national security.