Trump stokes pre-election fears over immigration
President also targets right to citizenship for children born in U.S.
WASHINGTON — Thousands of U.S. troops to stop an “invasion” of migrants. Tent cities for asylum seekers. An end to the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship.
President Donald Trump is rushing out hardline immigration declarations as he tries to retain Republican control of Congress. His campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears and that’s his final-week focus in the midterm fight.
Trump says he will send more than 5,000 military troops to the Mexican border to help defend against Central American migrants on foot hundreds of miles away. Tent cities would not resolve the massive U.S. backlog of asylum seekers. And most legal scholars say it would take a new constitutional amendment to alter the current one granting citizenship to anyone born in America.
But with well-timed interviews, Trump revived some of his hard-line immigration ideas:
An executive order to revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil.
The prolonged detention of anyone coming across the U.S.Mexico border, including those seeking asylum, in “tent cities” erected “all over the place.”
The administration on Monday announced plans to deploy 5,200 active duty troops — double the 2,000 in Syria fighting the Islamic State group — to the border to help stave off the caravans.
Trump’s citizenship proposal would inevitably spark a long-shot legal battle over whether the president can alter the long-accepted understanding that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of his or her parents’ immigration status.
Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said the Constitution is very clear.
“If you are born in the United States, you’re a citizen,” he said.