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US President-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to end birthright citizenship in America as soon as he gets into office. Birthright citizenship, guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, means that anyone born within American borders automatically becomes a citizen of the United States. This includes children of tourists, students studying in American colleges on short-term visas and undocumented immigrants.
If the incoming President were to try and change the law using "executive action" after he takes office, it would undo 150 years of how the US treated the issue.
What did Donald Trump Say?
In his first formal television interview on Sunday since the Presidential election, Mr Trump was asked if he was planning to go ahead with his poll promise of ending birthright citizenship, to which he said, "Yeah, absolutely."
"We're going to end that because it's ridiculous," he said during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press".
The President-elect said he's planning on changing the practice using executive action, noting that there are other options.
In a small olive branch offering to those advocating for allowing some undocumented migrants -- a key source of labour for much of the US economy -- to stay, Mr Trump said he will "work with the Democrats" on the so-called "dreamers" -- the immigrants who've become successful residents by getting good jobs and starting businesses after entering the United States illegally as young children.
"I don't want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back," he added. If the Trump administration goes ahead with this plan, it would mean expelling legal US citizens, including those who got citizenship through birth, so that they are not separated from their families.
Several Republicans, including Mr Trump, have argued that birthright citizenship gives rise to "birth tourism", in which pregnant women from other countries enter the US illegally, or on tourist visas, to give birth there, before returning to their home countries. This way, their children are born US citizens.
What Does The Law Say?
Birthright citizenship is a legal principle under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. This principle was confirmed in the US Constitution in 1868, after the four years of the American Civil War, to overturn the Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied basic rights to African Americans. The judgement said that enslaved people were not US citizens and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts.
Under the law, citizenship is automatically granted to individuals upon birth on US soil. "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 14th Amendment states.
Under the constitution, birthright citizenship is guaranteed to children born on US soil, "regardless of their parent's immigration or citizenship status," according to the American Immigration Council's website.
"For over a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment as conferring U.S. citizenship automatically to anyone born on U.S. soil," it adds.
The US employs a combination of birthright citizenship-- ancestry-based citizenship and birthplace-based citizenship.
Birthplace-based citizenship, which grants citizenship based on place of birth, is formally referred to as jus soli, a Latin term meaning "right of the soil", while restricted ancestry-based citizenship, referred to as jus sanguinis, extends citizenship to children born abroad to US citizens, provided statutory requirements are met.
How Can Birthright Citizenship Be Halted?
To implement any changes in the Constitution, Mr Trump's administration will require the support of a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress-- the Senate and the House of Representatives. In addition, the amendment must also be ratified by three-fourths of all state legislatures, according to a report by Independent.
Republicans have a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate and a 220 to 215 majority in the House, meaning America's grand old party (GOP) does not have the required number in either chamber.
In a 2011 article, the American Immigration Council noted that if birthright citizenship is ever halted in the US, it would cause parents to have to prove their children's citizenship status. "Our birth certificates are proof of our citizenship. If birthright citizenship were eliminated, U.S. citizens could no longer use their birth certificates as proof of citizenship," the council said.
What Donald Trump Can Do To End It?
Though Mr Trump did not give a lot of details on how he was planning to end birthright citizenship in his interview, the matter was extensively discussed in a 2023 post on his campaign website. According to a report by the Associated Press, the website said Mr Trump would issue an executive order on the first day of his presidency, making it clear that federal agencies "require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their future children to become automatic US citizens."
Per the incoming President, the executive order would make clear that children of illegal immigrants "should not be issued passports, Social Security numbers, or be eligible for certain taxpayer-funded welfare benefits."
However, the law is clear that birthright citizenship can't be ended by executive order and any such move would almost certainly end up in litigation.
But, Mr Trump may be inclined to take a shot anyway through the courts, said Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the pro-immigration Cato Institute.
"I don't take his statements very seriously. He has been saying things like this for almost a decade...He didn't do anything to further this agenda when he was president before. The law and judges are near uniformly opposed to his legal theory that the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States are not citizens," Nowrasteh said.
Mr Trump could steer Congress to pass a law to end birthright citizenship but would still face a legal challenge that it violates the Constitution.