Trump seeks to end birthright citizenship
Many legal experts say controversial act would violate 14th amendment
President Donald Trump is trying to follow through on one of his campaign promises by ending birthright citizenship, a 150-year-old law established in the Constitution that grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil.
The law has been the target of antiimmigration groups for years, who say it has been abused by undocumented immigrants and companies that peddle “birth tourism.” But birthright citizenship is ingrained in multiple U.S. laws and the Constitution and has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
Trump’s announcement that he will end the practice through an executive order is sure to draw legal challenges that could lead all the way to the Supreme Court. A look at some of the key aspects of birthright citizenship:
What is birthright citizenship?
The principle that anybody born on U.S. soil becomes a U.S. citizen.
It was added to the Constitution in 1868 in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which 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.” The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War, overriding the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that had forbidden AfricanAmericans from ever gaining citizenship and the Naturalization Act of 1790 that conferred citizenship only on free white persons “of good character.”
It has become a bedrock of U.S. immigration law. Congress also has passed laws extending birthright citizenship to people born in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
How many people benefit?
Citizenship was granted to about
275,000 babies born to undocumented immigrant parents in 2014, representing about 7 percent of all births in the country that year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Those numbers represented a drop from the peak years of illegal immigration, topped in 2006 when about 370,000 children were born to undocumented immigrants, or
9 percent of all births, according to the Pew estimate. Those numbers do not include pregnant mothers who obtain visas to travel to the U.S. shortly before giving birth; Russians routinely fly to South Florida, and there is an entire industry in China designed to coach pregnant women on how to deal with U.S. immigration authorities so they can enter the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving birth to American citizens.
Mexicans also contribute a large share: 21 percent of births in Arizona in
2014 were to undocumented immigrants, and 25 percent of births in Texas that year were to undocumented immigrants, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that opposes birthright citizenship and advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration.
How many countries grant it?
Trump has said the U.S. is the only nation in the world to grant birthright citizenship. The Center for Immigration Studies identified at least 30 nations that grant birthright citizenship, however, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.