President-elect Donald Trump believes birthright citizenship is “ridiculous” and wants to end it once he takes office on January 20. A guarantee that has been enshrined in the Constitution for over 150 years.
The United States grants citizenship to children born within its borders, regardless of the citizenship of their parents. However, this will soon change.
“We have to change it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview. “We’ll probably have to get back to the people. But we’ve got to get this over with.” Although he had raised this issue in his first term also, nothing much happened.
“This is not every country’s practice,” Russell A Stamets, partner at Circle of Counsel, told Business Standard, and Trump and his supporters have argued that the system is being abused and that there should be stricter standards for becoming a US citizen. “
The right to birthright citizenship is based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and is well established under US law, so ending it would pose significant legal challenges.
The 14th Amendment says, “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.”
Trump and other opponents of this policy say it enables “birth tourism”, a phenomenon where pregnant women enter the US specifically to give birth in order to prevent their babies from returning to their home countries. Can get American citizenship first.
“No one can be entitled to citizenship simply by crossing the border and having a child,” Eric Ruark, research director of NumbersUSA, said, according to the Associated Press.
Trump also said, “I don’t want to break up families, so the only way not to break up families is to put them back together and you have to send them all back”, meaning that even legal citizens would have families. Expelled for putting together.
A 2011 fact sheet from the American Immigration Council stated that removing birthright citizenship would affect everyone and make it more difficult for American parents to prove their children’s citizenship.
The fact sheet states, “Our birth certificates are proof of our citizenship. If birthright citizenship were eliminated, U.S. citizens would not be able to use their birth certificates as proof of citizenship.”
According to Pew Research’s 2022 US Census analysis, about 4.8 million Indian-Americans are living in the US, of whom 34 percent or 1.6 million were born in the country. These persons are citizens of the United States under current law. If Trump abolishes this law, it will affect 16 lakh Indians.
However, the President cannot amend the Constitution and any executive attempt to restrict the right would violate the 14th Amendment.
“I don’t take his statements very seriously. He’s been saying things like this for almost a decade,” Alex Nowrasteh, vice president of the pro-immigration Cato Institute, told The Associated Press. “When he was first president he did nothing to advance this agenda.”