Politics

Trump Could Finally Put One Of Immigration’s Thorniest Issues To Rest

Former President Donald Trump speaking at a press conference at a golf course near Los Angeles, Sept. 13, 2024.

President-elect Donald Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil by illegal migrant parents could put to rest a hot-button constitutional debate that’s loomed over the country for decades.

The incoming president has repeatedly vowed to end birthright citizenship immediately upon entering office, one of the more ambitious agenda items within his immigration enforcement platform. While the proposal has divided border hawks and immigration advocates, both sides generally agree the debate boils down to interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the conclusion of which will likely fall to the Supreme Court.

“Our position is that the 14th Amendment gives citizenship at birth only to those born in the United States to parents who were residing here with the permission of the United States,” Christopher Hajec, director of litigation for the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates for stricter immigration laws, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “That was the holding of the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark v. United States, a case that is still controlling.”

“The Court reasoned that only those residing here with permission met the requirement in the 14th Amendment of being ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States,” Hajec continued. “Under this rule, children of illegal aliens (who do not reside here with permission) or children of tourists (who do not reside here, but are only visiting) are not citizens by virtue of their birth here.”

Wong Kim Ark v. United States was an 1898 Supreme Court case that established birthright citizenship as a constitutional right. However, the decision was not unanimous, with Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Associate Justice John Harlan dissenting to the majority opinion. Their dissent—  which argued that Chinese aliens were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. because they retained allegiance to the Chinese emperor — largely paved the way for contemporary objections to the landmark decision.

Trump emerged victorious on Election Day after campaigning heavily on a hardline immigration platform. The incoming president has vowed to resume construction on the southern border wall, conduct the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, revive the Remain Mexico program and smack both Mexico and Canada with sky-high tariffs if their governments don’t do more to stop illegal migration, among other proposals.

Also on the to-do list is a re-examination of the first sentence in the first section of the 14 Amendment, which states: “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.”

“We’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people,” Trump said as recently as Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.  “But we have to end it.”

“If we can, through executive action,” the president-elect said when pressed on how he could get it done.

Trump’s argument for revoking birthright citizenship from those born by illegal migrant parents is the correct interpretation of the law, Hajec said to the DCNF.

Left-wing proponents of lax immigration laws are, unsurprisingly, not a fan of the idea. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called such an idea “blatantly unconstitutional” and the American Immigration Lawyers Association has long advocated for protecting the current interpretation of the law.

While declining to opine on the legality of Trump’s proposal, a spokesperson for the Migration Policy Institute pointed the DCNF to one of its earlier studies that cautioned against it on largely humanitarian grounds. The MPI study concluded that revoking birthright citizenship would create a “self-perpetuating class” of people excluded from social membership and would actually swell the number of illegal migrants living in the U.S.

However, border hawks argue misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment has incentivized illegal immigration into the U.S. and countless numbers of foreign nationals have flocked to the country over the years in hopes of their children gaining citizenship, a milestone that largely paves the way for the individual’s family unit to be allowed to remain and reap a plethora of taxpayer-funded benefits.

“President-elect Trump is right: birthright citizenship must end,” Joey Chester, communications manager of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), stated to the DCNF. “Birthright citizenship rewards lawlessness, and ultimately encourages more illegal immigration, by granting U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal aliens and increasing the likelihood that the illegal alien parents will obtain permanent residency.”

While corporate media outlets were quick to chastise Trump for incorrectly claiming on Sunday that the U.S. is the only country in the world that provides birthright citizenship, a surprisingly small number of countries around the world do so, according to the CIA World Factbook. Not a single member country of the European Union offers unconditional citizenship at birth, and neither do a number of other U.S. allies in the West.

There were roughly 250,000 babies born to illegal migrant parents in 2016 — long before the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis was sparked under the Biden-Harris administration. The issue isn’t confined to just those in the country unlawfully. Birthright citizenship in the U.S has even spawned an international industry known as “birth tourism,” in which hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals on tourist visas are believed to be giving birth on U.S. soil every year.

The U.S. experienced a disastrous border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration, with fiscal years 2023 and 2024 being the worst years in the country’s history for migrant encounters. There were roughly 8.5 million migrant encounters along the southern border during the four fiscal years of Biden’s White House tenure, and most polls indicated immigration became a major concern for American voters.

FAIR called on Trump and Republicans in Washington, D.C., to finally take action on the birthright citizenship issue, but also acknowledged that a court battle would undoubtedly ensue.

“Congress must pass legislation that interprets the full text of the 14th Amendment and clarifies that children born to illegal aliens in the U.S. will not be granted U.S. citizenship,” Chester said to the DCNF. “Unfortunately, we know that if President-elect Trump ends birthright citizenship, through executive action or by signing a law passed by Congress, open-borders advocates will immediately sue to strike down the measure.”

The ACLU, just one of numerous behemoth liberal organizations opposed to Trump’s immigration agenda, says it filed more than 400 legal actions against Trump and his first administration since 2016. The group reportedly has a plan-of-action underway to obstruct Trump’s second-term border enforcement proposals.

“Ultimately, the Supreme Court will need to decide the issue,” Chester concluded.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)