President
Donald Trump vowed to end the right of citizenship to children born in the
United States to non-citizens and illegal immigrants in his latest bid to
dramatically reshape immigration policies just days before the midterm
elections.
Trump would target
the citizenship right through an executive order, he told news website Axios in
an interview published on Tuesday, a move that would prompt a legal fight.
The right of US
citizenship is granted to US-born children under the 14th Amendment of
the Constitution, which cannot be changed by the president.
The text of the 14th Amendment
reads: “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.” Current Supreme Court precedent shows that the children
of non-citizens born in the United States are citizens.
It was unclear
what specific action his order would pursue, and Trump gave no details. He did
not say when he planned to sign the executive order, or how the White House
would go about reviewing the change. He has previously lied about proposed
executive orders, which have gone unfulfilled.
"This is
blatantly unconstitutional," Omar Jadwat, head of the ACLU Immigrants’
Rights Project told Reuters. "The president obviously cannot overturn the
Constitution by executive order. The notion that he would even try is
absurd."
Changing an
amendment in the Constitution would require the support of two-thirds of the US
House of Representatives and the Senate, and the backing of three-fourths of US
state legislatures at a constitutional convention.
Trump: 'It'll happen'
But Trump said he
has talked to his legal counsel and was advised he could enact the change on
his own. Asked about the dispute over such presidential powers, Trump said
he stood by his comments.
"It's in the
process. It'll happen," he told Axios in the interview, which will air in
full on the HBO pay cable channel on Sunday.
Trump also claimed
that the US is the only country to have such a policy, which is entirely false.
There are about 30 countries that apply the principle of birthright
citizenship.
Some conservatives
have long pushed for an end to the guarantee of birthright
citizenship. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham welcomed Trump's
announcement on Twitter, calling the practice a "magnet for illegal
immigration".
I will be introducing legislation to deal with the issue of birthright
citizenship for children of illegal immigrants -- in a prospective manner -- as
I have always contended it has become a magnet for illegal immigration in
modern times.
But other
Republicans pushed back on the news, saying that a key tenet of the American
Constitution could not be changed so easily.
"You cannot
end birthright citizenship with an executive order," said House Speaker
Paul Ryan. "You obviously cannot do that," he continued, speaking to
Kentucky radio station WVLK on Tuesday.
Trump, whose
hard-line immigration stance helped him win the White House, has seized on the
issue in recent weeks in the run-up to the November 6 vote that has Americans
sharply divided and grappling with race and national identity.
His latest
comments also come after the deadliest attack on Jews in US history on Saturday
and a series of bombs sent to top Democrats and other Trump critics last week.
'A false narrative on immigation'
Democrats and
other critics have condemned the president's rhetoric as inflammatory, urging
Trump to tone down his language and calling on voters to use the elections as a
way to reject such policies.
US Senator Chris
Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told MSNBC that
Trump "was driving a false narrative on immigration" in many ways to
stoke fear and turn it into an election issue.
On Monday, the
administration moved to send more than 5,200 troops to help secure the border
with Mexico as a caravan of Central American migrants, mostly on foot, makes
its way there, although it is unclear how many will arrive at the border or
when.
This legal
challenge would prompt the nation's courts to weigh in on what would be one of
the most sweeping moves of the Trump administration. It has already targeted
immigration through a travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries,
child-parent separations for migrants, refugee policies and other actions.
In 1898, the US
Supreme Court reaffirmed the right of citizenship to children born to legal
permanent residents. But conservatives say it should not apply to everyone,
including immigrants in the country illegally or those with temporary legal
status, Axios reported.
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