Trump team preps Executive Order to end birthright citizenship on Day 1

President-elect Donald Trump is gearing up for a legal fight concerning Constitutional standard of birthright citizenship: the legal concept that if someone in born in the US, they are automatically considered to be a citizen of the country. This comes as he has sought to prepare policy for immigration and secure the border. No European or Anglophone nation other than Canada has the blanket birthright citizenship that the US has.

The Trump transition team is crafting multiple versions of an executive order to end birthright citizenship, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump has stood against birthright citizenship for years concerning immigration, as oftentimes, immigrants who cross the border illegally have children in the US, making the children natural born citizens. This leads to a complicated legal situation where some people in a family could face deportation while others do not.



He said in his first term that he would sign an executive order against birthright citizenship, however that did not materialize. He has since said that on day one of his second term that he will sign such an order. Now in the weeks leading up to the election, his team is looking into what can be done to make it happen and how far it would go, the outlet reported. The order would likely change the requirements for citizenship for identifying documents. During a recent interview with Meet the Press, however, Trump admitted there could potentially be a Constitutional snaggle with his proposition. 

Incoming Trump admin press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump "will use every lever of power to deliver on his promises and fix our broken immigration system once and for all.” Birthright citizenship is connected to the 14th Amendment to the United States, which states, "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."

A senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America said, “Because you happen to be in this country when your child is born, is not a reason for that child to be a U.S. citizen. It’s just silly, and the reliance on it in law is utterly misplaced." The Trump camp has been critical of "birth tourism," or the practice of expectant mothers coming to the the United States for the sole purpose of making their children citizens, even if they have no plans to raise them here or become Americans themselves.

“I think they’ll probably uphold the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment,” Mark Krikorian, the executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) said of birthright citizenship, should it come to a legal fight.  “They’re going to want to start that court fight as soon as possible to see if they can see it through to the end before the administration ends."