President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would seek to put an end to US. citizenship for children of non-citizens born in the US.
President Trump said this during an interview as he continues to take hard line on immigration in the lead up to the mid-term elections in a week.
In the interview, Trump said the United States is the only country in the world where a baby born on US. soils to non-citizens are given automatic citizenship.
“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 added.
The move is bound to spark a constitutional debate about the meaning of the 14th Amendment that says “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.”
Trump meanwhile insists he can change it through an executive order and said he had spoken about it with his lawyers.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,
“You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
The US, unlike what Trump asserts, is not the only country in the world that grant unrestricted birthright citizenship to babies born in the country to noncitizens. There are 33 countries in the world that practise that.
