Birthright citizenship at Agbogbloshie is open: Americans are welcome

The other day, a longtime reader wrote to inquire about Sonnet, my daughter, and wondered what she would look like “after all these years.”
She also wanted to find out whether Sonnet was enjoying Canada better than England, where she was born.
He counted it as “blessing upon blessing” that Sonnet was transitioning from Europe to North America while lamenting on the living conditions in Africa.
He wished his three children in Agbogbloshie, Accra, had the same opportunities as Sonnet.
Sonnet would be about twenty-one years this year if she lived. Well, she didn’t die; Sonnet was a fictional daughter I created when I lived in the UK.
She was intended to live for only a day–as part of a story I wrote on marriage and family life.
While only an apocrypha, Sonnet became an investment of my boyish imagination of what I dreamed my children’s life would be. I wanted Sonnet to be born in England or the USA, where she would be clothed with automatic American citizenship.
I never wanted my children to be born, go to school or grow up in Agbogbloshie.
Statelessness Today, Sonnet risks being stateless if she was born in the USA, especially because I am not American.
After January 20, 2025 when President Donald Trump announced a flurry of harsh Executive Orders, including ending birthright citizenship and cracking down on illegal immigration, the global thinking of America is a terrain which has suddenly become topsy-turvy for foreigners.
This new America is also cutting foreign aid and literally telling countries that have not done well for their citizens to put their house in order and leave America alone for Americans only.
So far, twenty-two states and and four civil rights organisations have contested Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship with five lawsuits, and a federal judge has recently ruled to block Trump’s ban as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Before birthright proponents and beneficiaries start praying for long life for 84 year-old Judge John C. Coughenour, any undocumented person hoping to give birth in the USA, should note that the Judge’s ruling only lasts for 14 days.
The Department of Justice is bent on challenging the decision when the case opens again on February 6, 2025.
Where is automatic citizenship conferred on children born to tourists, visitors and people living illegally, Trump’s Vice, J.D. Vance, asked during a recent TV interview.
American Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
In 1868, it was ratified to grant citizenship to former slaves after the Civil War.
President Trump seeks to change this.
Right of bloodComing home to Agbogbloshie, let’s check with my friend who wishes his three kids were born in Trump’s America, whether children born to Nigerien onion traders and Burkinabe tomato sellers in Ghana, also enjoy automatic Ghanaian citizenship.
The citizenship Act of 2000 in the 1992 Constitution, provides that Ghanaian citizenship is based on the principle of Jus Sanguinis (right of blood).
Like many countries, citizenship in Ghana can be acquired by birth, adoption, registration and naturalization.
By our laws, a child born in Ghana to unknown parents is Ghanaian.
Experts say President Donald Trump is not only aiming at ending birthright citizenship.
Amanda Frost, University of Virginia law Professor, says the crackdown is actually on naturalization.
If the plan succeeds, Ghanaians who are already enjoying American citizenship could be stripped, especially if they acquired citizenship through naturalization. That may also affect their kids, because their parents who caused them to be born on American soil, were never Americans. The real fear is that birthright citizenship may one day afford the son of an undocumented immigrant free key to the White House as President of America.
Banku English By the way, what do Ghanaian kids stand to gain by being born in America?
My Agbogbloshie friend may revise his expectations if he ever visits America.
Here, prayer doesn’t seem to work when kids get into their teens. Unlike Ghana where they may only be influenced by known friends, all of whom may be Ghanaian–plus the usual trappings of adolescent peer pressure–American-Ghanaian kids are prey to influences from friends from other races and ethnicities, including nations noted for breeding terrorists. Here, high school kids have more loyalty to their friends.
In America, seven year olds are taught to call the police on their parents, to report abuse when they are given tasks like washing plates.
Our American kids do not only laugh and tease when their parents speak English with their Banku-plated Ghanaian accent; they are impervious to advice because they wear hoods.
When kids here reach the apogee of restless foolishness, helpless Ghanaian parents trick them to return to Ghana under the guise of vacationing in Africa, then leave them behind to learn their culture.
The parents seize their passports but the defiant ones seek revenge at the American Embassy.
They are more defiant when they return. The Agbogbloshie parent does not answer to their kids.
Birthright citizenship here is open, and the Americans are welcome.
The surroundings here are not as glamorous as Los Angeles and kids study without computers, but Agbogbloshe kids do not have to worry about how their mates interpret the Second Amendment of their

Tissues of the Issues
Kwasi Tawiah-Benjamin