https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ending-birthright-citizenship-donald-trumps-immigration-plan/
According to Axios, President Trump is gearing up to sign an executive order that would, in their words, “remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens born on U.S. soil.” There is some ambiguity in this formulation. Will the executive order in question limit birthright citizenship to the children of U.S. citizens, or will it extend citizenship to the children of lawful permanent residents, as in the case of most market democracies that have revised their birthright citizenship rules in recent decades? It is not clear from the video clip provided by Axios on HBO.
In truth, Trump’s response to reporter Jonathan Swan’s question seems rather off the cuff. At first, the president explains that while he once thought bringing an end to automatic birthright citizenship — presumably for the children of any class of non-citizens born in the U.S., whether legally present or otherwise — would require a constitutional amendment, he has since been persuaded that a statute would do, or even an executive order. Pressed by Swan as to whether such an executive order was in process of being drafted, Trump confidently replied that “it’s in the process, it’ll happen.” Will it happen, though? I’m skeptical.
First, I should stipulate that I have in the past argued for an amnesty for the long-settled unauthorized-immigrant population that would be accompanied by a constitutional amendment that would do two things: (a) grant Congress the authority to revise the rules around automatic birthright citizenship and (b) allow naturalized U.S. citizens who are otherwise eligible to serve as president. I’ve since changed my mind.
Though an amendment along these lines would have a hard time clearing the high hurdles we rightly put in the way of new constitutional amendments, it struck me as a tough-minded but ultimately fair way to address a serious and legitimate concern often raised by critics of an expansive amnesty: that such an amnesty would encourage further unauthorized inflows, future unauthorized immigrants would form families in the U.S. (including native-born citizen children), and these mixed-status households have long been among the most sympathetic cases, as most Americans are, for good reason, reluctant to divide families. If mixed-status households are a barrier to stringent enforcement, revising the rules around automatic birthright citizenship seemed like a legitimate solution — indeed, a solution that has in the past appealed to partisans of more open borders.