President Donald Trump has said he plans to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of non-American citizens who are born on U.S. soil.
Just a week before the high-stakes November 6 midterm elections, Trump also told Axios in an interview that as president of the United States he has the authority to issue such an order.
His legal experts have counselled that there was no need for a constitutional amendment to that end as previously thought, the president explained.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump said.
“You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order,” as Republicans faced a serious Democratic challenge to their majority in the House of Representatives.
Trump offered a justification for his planned move.
“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, with all of those benefits,” Trump said.
Continuing, he added, “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.” He said he has spoken with his legal advisers and that the move to issue the directive was “in the process.”
“It will happen, with an executive order,” Trump said, promptly drawing opposition to the idea from immigration advocates with the argument that such a huge departure from the constitutional amendment could only come about through an act of Congress.
The 14th Amendment of thee Constitution clearly 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.”
“Here we have a situation where the text of the Constitution is quite clear and the Supreme Court has interpreted it that way,” Garrett Epps, a constitutional law professor at the University of Baltimore was quoted as sayin by USA TODAY.
“So, for the president to assert that he can somehow overturn the text of the amendment and Supreme Court precedent by executive order is what we would call an extravagant claim.”
[…] Trump says he will end birthright citizenship with executive order […]