Can Trump end birthright citizenship?

President Donald Trump has again suggested his administration is working towards ending birthright citizenship, a constitutional right that grants citizenship to all children born in the US, regardless of their parents’ nationality.

Speaking to White House reporters on Wednesday, Trump said: “We’re looking at birthright citizenship very seriously.”

“Birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land – walk over the border, have a baby, congratulations, the baby’s now a US citizen… it’s frankly ridiculous.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

However, many prominent politicians – including Republicans – are adamant that the President does not have the power to abolish the right, says The Independent.

Trump first brought up the idea of scrapping birthright citizenship during his 2016 presidential campaign, branding it “a magnet for illegal immigration”, reports Time.

He suggested it again ahead of 2018 US midterms. “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,” the president claimed, incorrectly, in a TV interview with Axios in October. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

What is birthright citizenship?

Birthright citizenship is a constitutional right that automatically grants citizenship to children born in the US. There are around 30 other countries that also operate this system.

The 14th Amendment of the US constitution states that: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Critics argue that the amendment attracts illegal immigrants to the US to have so-called anchor babies, who as US citizens can later apply for legal status for their entire families, says The Wall Street Journal.

Could Trump abolish it?

The president said he had discussed the matter with legal counsel who advised him that he could end birthright citizenship by executive order.

“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment,” he said in 2018. “Guess what? You don’t.”

But most legal experts agree it would take a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship, something which would require Congressional approval.

“The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order,” Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project,” told The New York Times last year.

This is a “transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred,” he said.

Any attempt to redefine the terms of the 14th Amendment to remove the right of birthright citizenship is likely to meet stiff resistance in the courts, Bloomberg reports.

“Many scholars, including some prominent conservatives, say the issue is settled,” the news site says.

Among them is John Yoo, a former Justice Department official during the George W. Bush administration, who said that courts have been explicit on the matter.

“Anyone born on American territory, no matter their national origin, ethnicity or station in life, is an American citizen,” he said.