Former President Donald Trump says he will sign an executive order to end birthright citizenship on his first day back in the White House if he is re-elected in 2024.
The pledge, which appears in an “Agenda 47” campaign video Trump posted to Truth Social on Tuesday, aims to crack down on granting U.S. citizenship to babies who are born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil and rein in “birth tourism” for foreigners visiting the United States.
“As part of my plan to secure the border, on day one of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump says in the video.
These babies have been “eligible for welfare, taxpayer-funded healthcare, the right to vote, chain migration, and countless other government benefits, many of which will also profit the illegal alien parents,” Trump says. “This policy is a reward for breaking the laws of the United States and is obviously a magnet, helping draw the flood of illegals across our borders.”
Trump says his plan would “choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming, and encourage many of the aliens [President] Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries.”
“My order will also end their unfair practice known as birth tourism, where hundreds of thousands of people from all over the planet squat in hotels for their last few weeks of pregnancy to illegitimately and illegally obtain U.S. citizenship for the child, often to later exploit chain migration to jump the line and get green cards for themselves and their family members,” Trump says later in the video.
“It’s a practice that’s so horrible, and so egregious, but we let it go forward. At least one parent will have to be a citizen or a legal resident in order to qualify,” Trump adds.
This is not the first time Trump has spoken about using an executive order to end birthright citizenship. He did so during his first term.
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Some legal experts caution that such a move would clash with the 14th Amendment, which 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.”
If Trump were to follow through on issuing such an executive order, it would likely face challenges in court.
Still, Trump says in his new video that “many scholars” have argued that birthright citizenship is a policy “based on a historical myth, and a willful misinterpretation of the law by the open borders advocates.”
“Starting on day one, our country will be great again,” Trump says in concluding his video. “Our country will be a country again. We’ll have borders, we’ll have proper education, and we’ll put America first.”