Last week, Trump issued two executive orders taking aim at birthright citizenship, a battle he already lost with the highest court.
The first order, entitled “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” prevents federal agencies from recognizing U.S. citizenship for certain children born in the United States if neither parents is a citizen. According to the order, there are four categories of children that fall outside of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The categories include children with a parent who is an “alien enemy,” children with a parent who is employed by a foreign government, children whose parents engage in commercial transactions involving birth in the United States (ie. surrogacy), and children born in U.S. territories or waters where citizenship is not conferred by the Constitution.
The second order, “Ending Birth Tourism,” targets parents. It directs the DHS and the State Department to take action against foreign nationals who use the visa process to come to the United States for the purpose of giving birth. The penalty for this could include visa revocation, refusal of entry, and other actions against people and organizations that facilitate birth tourism.
Births that come from birth tourism represent less than 1% of total births in the United States each year.
The ACLU and other groups have already begun to challenge the executive orders and attempts to circumvent something on which the SCOTUS has already ruled. Early this week, they asked a federal court to block the administration from enforcing the orders.
“President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right, and he may not like that he lost in the Supreme Court, but that is really beside the point,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel. “It’s well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children’s citizenship to end.”
