WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has signed two new executive orders attempting to narrow eligibility for automatic U.S. citizenship. The move revives a central push of his immigration agenda following a Supreme Court ruling that rejected his earlier attempt to broadly curtail birthright citizenship.
The new directives focus on more specific categories, primarily seeking to ban “birth tourism”—where non-citizens travel to the U.S. to give birth on U.S. soil—and placing restrictions on children born to foreign government employees, individuals accused of visa fraud, or those classified as members of foreign terrorist organizations.
Speaking from the Oval Office, White House officials argued the practice of traveling to the U.S. solely to secure citizenship for newborns abuses the immigration system. Trump criticized the Supreme Court’s prior decision, which reaffirmed legal interpretations of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, calling the ruling “unfortunate” and asserting that current interpretations foster exploitation.
The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to all individuals “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. Supreme Court precedent—including the landmark 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision—has interpreted this clause to apply broadly to children born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ legal status.
Legal scholars and civil rights organizations anticipate immediate court challenges to the new executive orders, setting up another legal showdown over executive authority and constitutional protections.–Editor Ali