This Palgrave Pivot reframes the second Trump administration’s attempts to repeal birthright citizenship, accelerate the deportation of migrants, and deny transgender legal recognitions as the unapologetic extensions of earlier efforts to restrict state-mandated recognition of queer transnational families in the afterlife of same-sex marriage. By examining policies denying queer parents the right to transmit jus sanguinis citizenship to their foreign-born children alongside these Trump 2.0 executive orders and the Dobbs decision, the book maps how culture-war controversies over unauthorized immigration, transgender rights and reproductive justice work together to reinforce heteronormative and racialized ideals of national belonging in a political era that diversifies them. The book concludes by extending queer and feminist critiques of conservative gay rights formulations and methodological nationalisms to explore where we go from here, pointing to ways that queer, migrant and allied communities are already reimagining kinship, citizenship and migration.

Katie Oliviero is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College, USA. Her research uses sociolegal, queer, transnational and intersectional feminist approaches to examine the sociopolitical debates surrounding migration, citizenship, LGBTQ rights, reproductive justice and disability. She is the author of Vulnerability Politics (NYU Press 2018).