All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.
US President-elect pledges Donald Trump to Revoke Birthright Citizenship On the first day of his second term, but some say that may be nearly impossible.
And with the program “Face the Press” on NBC Network, Asked if he planned to follow through on his promise to abolish birthright citizenship, under which people born in the United States are considered citizens, Trump replied, “Absolutely,” adding that he would do so by executive order if he could.
Asked how to circumvent the 14th Amendment, Trump said: “We’re going to have to make a change.”
Trump also claimed that the United States is the only country in the world that offers birthright citizenship. This is not true, as the United States and Canada are the only G7 countries that offer this service, and many other countries offer it in some form.
This is not the first time Trump has suggested ending the idea, having floated the idea in 2018. In the recent interview, he said he had planned to take executive action on birthright citizenship in his first term, but the Covid-19 pandemic prevented it.
What does the 14th amendment say?
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified after the Civil War to grant U.S. citizenship to newly freed black slaves. It was later used to grant citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil after court challenges.
The citizenship requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment state: “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.”
The second sentence contains two of the most important provisions of the Constitution, the due process and equal protection clauses. They apply to everyone in the United States, not just citizens: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the jurisdiction and equal protection of the laws.”
Can Trump End Birthright Citizenship With Executive Order?
Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told CNN that ending birthright citizenship in the United States is nearly impossible without a constitutional amendment.
Congress could initiate the constitutional amendment process and then send it to the states for ratification. But such a decision would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, which is highly unlikely at this time, and ratification by three-quarters of the states.
Some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued that the phrase “subject to its jurisdiction” in the 14th Amendment allows the United States to deny citizenship to children born to those children in the country illegally, Jeffrey Hoffman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center, said in 2018.
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However, Hoffman said these arguments are false because anyone in the United States, besides diplomats, would be subject to U.S. laws regardless of immigration status.
Any executive order issued by Trump or any president could be subject to a legal challenge, and there are several provisions in the Constitution that would make fighting the citizenship clause difficult.
Along with the Fourteenth Amendment itself, Huffman said an executive order banning the citizenship clause would violate Article II of the Constitution, which states that the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Hoffman said such an executive order would violate denaturalization laws and would attempt to retroactively strip citizenship, another violation of the Constitution.
