On October 30, President Trump announced that he is considering issuing an Executive Order to end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is the principle that anyone born on American soil is automatically a citizen, regardless of the immigration status of the parents, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.”
The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 as part of the Reconstruction Amendments after the Civil War, and was intended to nullify the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling that no African Americans could become citizens, regardless of their status at birth.
Critics of the President’s proposal say that birthright citizenship cannot be ended by Executive action because changes to the Constitution can only be made by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress or through a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of State legislatures. They also point out that at least 30 other countries, including Mexico and Canada, also have birthright citizenship.
The issue relates to current concerns about illegal immigration, including the arrival of a “caravan” of asylum seekers to the U.S.–Mexico border. The President sent 5,000 troops to help Border Patrol prevent many of them from entering and has effectively closed the border in California.
In announcing his effort to end birthright citizenship, the President acknowledged that it will “probably” go to the Supreme Court.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (WI-R) pointed out that Republicans in Congress objected when President Barack Obama tried to use Executive Orders to make immigration policy, saying that the same objection applied here. “I think in this case the Fourteenth Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process,” he said, adding that he agreed with the President that the “root issue” was “unchecked illegal immigration.”
From the December 2018 issue of Congressional Digest on “The 2020 Census Debate.” Read the complete issue.
