On Wednesday, the US President Donald Trump said that his administration is seriously considering an exclusive administrative order to end US birthright citizenship in spite of the fact that such a move would face instant legal challenge as well as is at odds with Supreme Court precedent.
Trump told the reporters outside the White House, “We’re looking at that very seriously, birthright citizenship,” echoing his administration’s earlier promise to unilaterally terminate the procedure by which babies born in the country automatically turn into citizens.
“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,” said the President. “It’s, frankly, ridiculous.”
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution assurances birthright citizenship and 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.”
Donald Trump likely to end birthright citizenship in US
Trump had promised to end the birthright citizenship for the duration of his 2016 presidential campaign and revived the idea last year, as per to a report of The Hill.
The capability of a president to terminate the birthright citizenship has been widely challenged by a range of lawmakers as well as legal scholars which also comprises of one of Trump’s own judicial nominees.
Previous Wednesday, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan revealed new policies which are going to let the government to detain those families who are crossing the US-Mexico border longer than before.
But on the other hand, if the new rule survives court challenges, the policy change may possibly let authorities to detain families through the period of their immigration proceedings.
Speaking with Axios in the year 2018, Trump said he would end birthright citizenship through an exclusive order, however he did not make available a timeline for doing so.
He said at that time, “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 with all of those benefits.”
He further added, “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.” In fact, there are more than 30 nations all around the world which have birthright citizenship.
The US federal government has searched for several ways in order to control and limit the illegal as well as legal immigration since Trump was sworn in January 2017.
On the other hand, Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who is a Democratic senator from California, made a comment on Trump’s statement on Twitter Wednesday, stating that the President “should ‘seriously’ consider reading the Constitution.”
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