Questions loom over whether children born in U.S. to migrant parents can access Trump Accounts

Here's the wrinkle nobody thought through before the press release went out: a program built to give American kids a financial head start may end up handing $1,000 Treasury-funded accounts to children born to parents who are in this country illegally. That's not a talking point. That's just how the statute appears to read right now, and it's the kind of detail that should have been nailed down before anyone announced it, not after reporters started asking questions.

We like the idea behind Trump Accounts. Seeding investment accounts for kids born in America is the sort of forward-looking, pro-family policy conservatives should be pushing more of, not less. But the whole appeal rests on it being for American kids, born into American families, building toward an American future. If the eligibility rules don't distinguish between a citizen born to citizens and a citizen born to parents who crossed the border unlawfully, that's a design flaw, not a technicality.

Birthright citizenship debates aside, there's a simpler point here. Taxpayer-funded benefit programs should be drafted with enough precision that this question doesn't come up as an afterthought. It's not too much to ask that the people writing these bills think about who actually qualifies before the ink dries. Congress and the Treasury need to close this loophole quickly, cleanly, and without turning it into another shouting match about immigration writ large.

If Trump Accounts are going to be a signature achievement, they need to work as advertised: a program for American families, not one that inherits every unresolved fight over who counts as one.