President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that he intends to sign an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for the children of many immigrants to the U.S.
Trump, in an interview with Axios, part of which aired Tuesday morning, said birthright citizenship “has to end” and that it would, “with an executive order.”
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
“It’s in the process. It’ll happen with an executive order,” he said, adding that he’s consulted with the White House counsel on the matter.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, citizenship is awarded to children born in the U.S., or in U.S. territories, to parents of immigrants to the country.
Trump made the comments to “Axios on HBO.” Clips of the interview were released Tuesday morning, but the entire interview will air Sunday night.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump said. “You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
The U.S. is not the only nation in the world that grants birthright citizenship, as Trump stated. In fact, as of 2015, at least 32 other nations had passed laws granting some form of birthright citizenship, according to Politifact.
Trump’s executive order, if and when it is signed, will almost certainly face legal challenges due to the fact that birthright citizenship is rooted in the interpretation of a constitutional amendment. The “Citizenship Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment states 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.”
Many legal scholars believe the issue was settled by an 1898 decisionof the U.S. Supreme Court involving a man born in the United States to Chinese parents who lived here legally.
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Source: NBC
