Ending Birthright Citizenship Won't Be Easy

President Trump promised Monday to take aggressive action to curb the number of undocumented migrants in the US, and one of the bigger initiatives revolves around what's known as birthright citizenship. Trump aims to end the practice of bestowing citizenship on babies born on American soil to undocumented residents, which advocates say is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, reports Politico. However, Trump's executive order is expected to face immediate legal challenges, notes the Washington Post, and it was unclear how quickly any such reversal could take effect.

• "The federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States," a Trump official said Monday. And in her congressional hearing last week, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi declined to say birthright citizenship was the law of the land when asked. Instead, she said she would study the issue.
• The 14 Amendment 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." The fight will boil down to whether Trump can change that via executive order, per NBC News. The change would apply to future births.
• The New Republic sums things up thusly: "Whether Trump can actually end birthright citizenship is unknown. He'd need either the Supreme Court to defend his order, or a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate to repeal the Amendment (along with ratification by three-quarters of the states). But this wouldn't be the first time the courts have reinterpreted the law in his favor."

(More birthright citizenship stories.)