Asmongold Wants Birthright Citizenship Scrapped, Calling It a Game Exploit America Should Patch

Asmongold took a break from dungeon pulls to talk U.S. policy on his Twitch stream, and yeah, it went exactly where you think it would: comparing the 14th Amendment to a busted game mechanic. It is a spicy take, but the global context he brought up is actually pretty interesting.

The rant, in gamer terms

In a recent stream, Asmongold argued that birthright citizenship in the U.S. is the kind of loophole any decent game dev would hotfix. He framed the current policy as something the Founders did not intend—more like a system that drifted away from its original purpose over time.

"Such an OBVIOUS exploit!"

He does give the 14th Amendment its historical due: it exists because the country needed to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. But his point is that, decades later, it morphed into something else entirely. The clip made the rounds quickly in the usual places, including the LivestreamFail subreddit.

His actual argument, minus the all-caps

Here is what he is pushing for: if neither parent is a U.S. citizen, their child should not automatically be one just because they were born here. If at least one parent is a citizen, he is fine with that kid being American. But when both parents are non-citizens, he thinks the child should follow their status instead of getting citizenship by default. He also said that any system this abusable would get patched in a video game, and he was pretty blunt about people who disagree—framing pushback as either being disingenuous or not understanding how the system actually works.

How rare is U.S.-style birthright citizenship?

This is where things get nerdy in a useful way. The kind of unconditional birthright citizenship the U.S. has—often called 'jus soli' or 'right of soil'—is not common globally. Roughly 33 countries still offer it without conditions, and almost all of them are in the Americas. Among advanced economies, the list basically stops at two: the U.S. and Canada.

• Germany: A child gets citizenship if at least one parent has a permanent residence permit and has lived there for around eight years.
• France: Typically requires one parent to be French or born in France.
• Australia: One parent must be a citizen or permanent resident.
• Japan: No blanket birthright citizenship; there are limited provisions, like for children born to stateless or unknown parents.

So yes, on the global scoreboard, the U.S. and Canada are outliers. Most developed countries tie citizenship to a parent being a citizen or a legal permanent resident, not just the location of the birth.

The bottom line

Asmongold is obviously using a game design analogy to make a big, complicated policy point. You can argue that the comparison oversimplifies things, but the data point he leans on is real: unconditional birthright citizenship is rare outside the Americas. Whether that makes the U.S. system a 'broken mechanic' is a whole other debate.

Agree with his take? Think the patch notes should stay closed? Hit the comments.