WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed two executive actions Thursday aimed at limiting who qualifies for American citizenship by birth on U.S. soil—his second attempt to restrict birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court rejected his initial effort.
The first action targets automatic citizenship for children born to adults connected with foreign embassies or organizations, those deemed an "alien enemy" of the United States, and those whose parents committed fraud to obtain citizenship.
The second order seeks to curb what Trump calls "birth tourism"—the practice of traveling to the United States on a visa specifically to give birth and secure citizenship for a child.
Trump said he was confident the new actions would survive legal scrutiny. He criticized the earlier Supreme Court ruling: "I thought we were going to win it at the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, we had a bad decision, very unfair decision. Our country suffers because of it and we're ending it a different way."
The effort faces a direct challenge from the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil. Gabriel Chin, a professor at the University of California Davis School of Law, told the BBC that while the president has some authority to restrict visa holders from entering the country to give birth, that power stops once the child arrives. "Once a child is born in the United States, I don't think the president has any power to decide that that child is not a citizen," Chin said.
The Trump administration argues birthright citizenship draws illegal immigration. Supporters say American citizenship should not be automatically extended to anyone born within the country's borders.
Immigration advocates and many legal experts counter that birthright citizenship strengthens the United States by giving all people born here an equal stake in its future. They warn that restricting citizenship by parentage could create a second class of people in America.
Seeking a visa specifically to obtain citizenship for a child is already considered fraud and grounds for visa denial, the Migration Policy Institute has said. Previous administrations prosecuted birth tourism schemes, and the State Department recently established a task force to address the practice.
No official estimate exists for the number of births attributed to birth tourism each year. Chin described the practice as a "drop in the bucket" compared to the millions of births occurring annually in the United States.
The new executive actions are expected to face immediate legal challenges, likely setting up another Supreme Court review of the 14th Amendment's scope.
