WASHINGTON – President Trump is planning to sign an executive order ending the automatic right to citizenship for children of noncitizens and illegal immigrants born in the US. Trump’s statement prompted a Constitutional panic on Twitter.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump told Axios in an interview taped on Monday. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
https://youtu.be/H0d21nQBY8o?t=1
While Trump was ambiguous on the subject, it is likely that the children of legal immigrants who have attained US citizenship will be unaffected by the planned policy order.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1057243473785561088
https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1057232055937961984
https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1057217288422727680
While Trump can issue an executive order on birthright citizenship, that order can then be challenged in court and overturned if it is found unconstitutional. This was the case earlier this year and last year when the first iterations of the president’s controversial travel ban were declared unconstitutional by federal courts.
Any executive order issued by Trump would, therefore, have to fall within the boundaries set by the Constitution, and the Supreme Court would have to determine whether the text of the 14th Amendment actually guarantees birthright citizenship, a matter of intense debate among legal scholars.
As the president claimed the US is “the only country” that offers birthright citizenship, 33 other countries, including Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, do the same.
