Just a few blocks from the towering wall dividing the United States and Mexico in Tijuana stands a brightly painted Haitian restaurant called Lakou Lakay — a Haitian Creole phrase meaning “home.” For its owner, Vivianne Petit Frere, the name reflects something real: her family has put down roots in Mexico, and her granddaughter was born there two years ago, automatically becoming a Mexican citizen.
That automatic citizenship — known as birthright citizenship — is something Mexico and the United States actually share. Yet President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. stands alone in offering it.
Trump signed an executive order on January 20, 2025, his first day back in office for his second term, aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary legal status. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether that order is constitutional.
In April, Trump posted on Truth Social: “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!”
That claim, however, is false. Approximately three dozen countries — the majority of them in the Americas — automatically grant citizenship to children born within their borders. That list includes Canada, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico.
Petit Frere originally fled Haiti in 2019, traveling through Brazil and trekking through the Panamanian jungle with the goal of reaching the United States and joining relatives in Florida. That dream faded, but Mexico welcomed her. In just over five years in Tijuana, she has built a thriving restaurant business, become fluent in Spanish, and is pursuing a degree in social work.
Her restaurant is more than a place to eat. Signs on the walls — written in Spanish, English, and Creole — speak to a deeper mission. “Every dish tells a story, every detail connects cultures,” reads one. “We aim to promote an authentic cultural exchange between two peoples with similar historical roots yet where Haitian identity proudly blossoms on Mexican soil.”
The menu features traditional Haitian dishes such as fish with plantains and rice and beans.
Her granddaughter, Alexca, described as a bubbly, giggling toddler, is now a first-generation Mexican in the family. Petit Frere said she is grateful Alexca was born in Mexico rather than Haiti, where gang violence has left more than one in ten people without homes. She also noted that a Mexican passport will open far more doors for Alexca — Haitian passport holders face significant travel restrictions and are allowed visa-free entry to very few countries.
“As a Mexican citizen, she will have more opportunities,” Petit Frere said.
She also pointed out that three of her nieces, born in Brazil, automatically became Brazilian citizens — further illustrating how widespread birthright citizenship is across the Americas.
Petit Frere and her daughter had already obtained permanent residency in Mexico before Alexca was born. But she noted that many other Haitian parents in Tijuana did not have legal status when their children were born there — and Mexico’s policy allows parents of birthright citizens to apply for permanent residency.
“There are a lot of children in Tijuana who are 6, 7, 8 years old now who are Mexican and their parents who are Haitian did not have legal status but now have become permanent residents because their children were born here,” she said.
Petit Frere has begun the process of applying for Mexican citizenship herself, which she said would make it easier to grow her business. She is also a community organizer with the Haitian Bridge Alliance, advocating on behalf of Haitian migrants, and hopes to pursue additional studies in international migration, potentially through a U.S. university.
On Trump’s push to restrict birthright citizenship, she offered a pointed take: “The children of immigrants are proving to be the most outstanding in the world.” His efforts to limit that right, she suggested, “could just be out of jealousy.”
In the United States, birthright citizenship was established after the Civil War through the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, partly to ensure that formerly enslaved people would be recognized as citizens. The right was later extended to the children of immigrants in the late 1800s, when the Supreme Court ruled that nearly anyone born on U.S. soil — regardless of their parents’ legal standing — is entitled to citizenship.
Legal historians trace the roots of birthright citizenship back to the 1600s and 1700s, when European rulers encouraged settlers to migrate to the expanding American colonies.
“You’re a citizen as long as you’re born within the domain of the king, of the monarch,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. “But the legal tie between the home country in Europe and the settlers remained strong through the promise of birthright citizenship.”
Not every country has maintained such policies. In 2007, the Dominican Electoral Council officially moved to deny citizenship to children born to parents without legal status. A Dominican court later applied that decision retroactively to 1929. More than a decade after a 2014 law was passed to address the ruling — following widespread international criticism — as many as 130,000 people remained stateless, according to the Center for Migration Studies of New York. The policy now affects the next generation, leaving many vulnerable to deportation.
Petit Frere herself was born in French Saint Martin, a Caribbean island that does not offer automatic birthright citizenship. She and her Haitian mother were deported to Haiti when she was just six years old.
She later left Haiti in search of a better life. When her teenage daughter arrived in Tijuana to reunite with her three years later, Petit Frere was dismayed to learn her daughter was nearly five months pregnant. Having been a teen mother herself, she had hoped for a different path for her child. But little Alexca has, as she put it, conquered her heart.
There are no official statistics on how many children born to non-citizens have received Mexican birthright citizenship. Tens of thousands of Haitians are currently living in Mexico. In 2021, when Haitian migration into Mexico rose significantly, at least ten percent of arriving Haitian women were pregnant, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.
