Pres. Trump Claims He Wants To End Birthrights For Some Citizens
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WASHINGTON (CBSMiami/CNN) - President Donald Trump may be considering a challenge to the Constitution as to who can truly be considered a US citizen.
In an interview with Axios, President Donald Trump said he plans to issue an executive order that would remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens, and unauthorized immigrants, born on U.S. soil.
"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. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end," he said.
The order would be a direct challenge to the 14th Amendment passed after the Civil War. It specifically states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The Supreme Court has upheld this rule for legal permanent residents but has never decided a citizenship case involving an illegal immigrant or a short-term visitor to the US
Trump did not say when he would sign the order, and some of his past promises to use executive action have gone unfulfilled. But whether the President follows through on his threat or not, the issue joins a string of actions intended to thrust the matter of immigration into the front of voters' minds as they head to polls next week.
A day earlier, the President vowed in an interview on Fox News to construct tent cities to house migrants traveling through Mexico to the US southern border. His administration announced the deployment of 5,200 troops to protect the frontier as the "caravan" continues to advance. And the President has warned of an "invasion" of undocumented immigrants if the border isn't sealed with a wall.
Still, the threat of ending birthright citizenship amounts to another escalation in Trump's hardline approach to immigration, which has become his signature issue.
Details of Trump's executive order have not been revealed but it supposedly would end citizenship for some visa holders and undocumented immigrants.
The step would immediately be challenged in court. Some of Trump's previous immigration executive orders, including an attempt to bar entry to citizens from some Muslim-majority countries, came under legal scrutiny after a chaotic drafting process. At the same time, the President has derided his predecessor Barack Obama for taking executive actions to block some young undocumented immigrants from deportation, a step Trump said was a presidential overstep.
The American Civil Liberties Union slammed Trump's proposal Tuesday morning.
"The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order, and the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms."
