Washington: President Donald Trump’s decision to bring an executive order to end the right to the US citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens has invited widespread criticism, even from his own party.
In his latest hardline immigration rhetoric ahead of the midterm congressional elections, Trump, in an interview with Axios, has said birthright citizenship “has to end” and that it would “with an executive order.”
“You cannot end the birthright citizenship with an executive order,” said Congressman Paul Ryan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. “We didn’t like it when (former President) Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives, we believe in the Constitution,” Ryan told a local radio station in Lexington, Kentucky.
Under the current laws, anyone born in the US irrespective of the nationality of parents, automatically becomes an American citizen.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment, one amendment. You don’t have to do it. Number one. Number two, you can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they are saying, I can do it just with an executive order,” Trump told Axios in an interview. A portion of the interview was released.
The full interview “Axios on HBO” is scheduled to be aired on Sunday. Such a practice to give citizenship to anyone born in the US is “ridiculous”, Trump said.
He said that we are the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the US for 85 years with all of those benefits.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end”. Trump said that the effort to end this practice was in the process. “We are in the process. It’ll happen with an executive order. That’s what you’re talking about.” According to Axios, Trump said that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the highly-controversial move, which certainly will face legal challenges. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, said it would require a constitutional amendment to make necessary changes on who all can acquire citizenship.
“I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me it would take a constitutional amendment to change that as opposed to an executive order,” Grassley told a local news channel in Iowa.
