The practical effects of Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship

Presidents have no authority to change the rules of citizenship on their own, as adjudicated sexual abuser, convicted felon and President Donald Trump is trying to do, but if Trump’s recent dictatorial attempt to end birthright citizenship at the stroke of a pen were to ultimately be realized, it would create negative repercussions for parents and babies born in the U.S. after February 19, 2025. Estimates are that about 150,000 children born in the U.S. each year and their parents could face obstacles under this system.

Birthright citizenship means anyone born or naturalized within the U.S. or its territories is automatically considered a citizen of the United States, regardless of where their parents are from. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It can’t simply be erased with the stroke of a pen. Formally proposing an amendment to the Constitution requires approval of 2/3 of both houses of Congress, and acceptance requires ratification by 38 of the 50 states. 

The citizenship system Trump has illegally proposed is completely different. It is citizenship by ancestry, or citizenship determined by bloodlines.

An ancestry citizenship system

In the ancestry system, citizenship is determined solely by where your parents, grandparents, and perhaps even more distant ancestors were born. Countries that use the ancestry system may also require proof that the ancestor through whom a person claims their citizenship has never lost or renounced their citizenship.

Under Trump’s executive order, the new ancestry or bloodline system would apply to all babies born in the U.S. after February 19, 2025.

If you’re having a baby, you may think it’s no big deal because you can just use your baby’s birth certificate or social security card to prove its citizenship, but you’d be wrong. Documents like social security cards, drivers licenses and even a baby’s own birth certificate would not be enough to verify ancestry citizenship. Instead, you would need to supply the government with proof that both you and the baby’s other parent were born or naturalized in the U.S., like the birth certificates or passports of both parents. This could be particularly difficult for adopted children, and if only one of the baby’s parents was born in the U.S., the baby may not be eligible to be a citizen at all.

T-shirt for sale on Amazon. Amazon and its owner, Jeff Bezos, have given $1 million to Trump

Trump’s proposed policy ending birthright citizenship states that if one parent is “unlawfully present in the United States” and the other is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, the child cannot claim citizenship. Also, if one parent’s presence in the U.S. was “unlawful but temporary,” for example by having a work, student or tourist visa, and the other parent was not a U.S. citizen, then their child would not be eligible for citizenship. So parents would have to prove their lawful citizenship to the government in order for their baby or adopted child to be considered a citizen. That means new parents would need to dig up their own birth certificates or those of their parents or grandparents, or the birth certificates of their adopted child’s parents, which may not even be possible.

An example of the practical effect would be if the child of a couple who were brought into the U.S. unlawfully while they themselves were still children — for example two “Dreamers” — would have no citizenship rights, even if the baby’s parents had been living in and paying taxes in the U.S. for 30 years.

Ending birthright citizenship would turn America to a country-club-like place in which elites get to pick and choose who can become a member.

If you have difficulty finding sufficient proof that both your baby’s parents were born in the U.S., until you can find all that information and provide it to the government, your baby will have no rights of citizenship. Your baby would be part of a newly-created underclass of people who are at a hereditary citizenship disadvantage in the U.S.

A new policy ending birthright citizenship would not help solve the country’s immigration issues. Rather, it would swell the size of the unauthorized population in the U.S. and, as time passes, block hundreds of thousands, even millions of people from being able to vote, work, run for office, apply for government jobs, and serve on a jury or serve in the military until it can be proven that both of their parents were born in the U.S. If you are unable to prove your own ancestral U.S. citizenship it would make your kids ineligible for scholarships or financial aid programs that are only open to U.S. citizens. It would make them ineligible for government food assistance like food stamps, health insurance programs like Medicaid, Affordable Care Act subsidies and other benefits open to American citizens. Millions of Americans’ ability to earn a living could also be compromised because many jobs — particularly those in the public sector — require employees to be U.S. citizens.

Ethics attorney: Trump pushing legal limits this way is “common in dictatorships”

By definition a felon has broken laws, and Trump, a 34-count felon who has never been held accountable for his crimes, is showing a propensity to keep breaking laws as president. His strategy is effectively to break laws and challenge others to stop him. Whether by ignorance or intent, Trump is willfully breaking laws that provide that he cannot change the Constitution by presidential decree. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour called Trump’s executive order “blatantly unconstitutional.” As of January 21, twenty two states and two cities have sued to stop it. The states include California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington have filed separate suits in federal court challenging Trump’s order as well. His behavior is costing American taxpayers a fortune in legal fees to challenge his unlawful acts in order to protect democracy and the Constitution.

Former presidential ethics lawyer Norm Eisen says Trump is “testing and pushing the limits of legal violations as president,” adding that such actions are common in dictatorships.

  6 comments for “The practical effects of Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship

  1. 1) Trump knows his executive order is unenforcable.
    He’s is interested in getting the conversation going.

    2) This won’t require a new ammendment…just a new Supreme Court ruling.

    3) Pretty much every civilized country in the world has jus saguinis (birthright by blood) and they have managed to figure it out. I bet we can, too.

    • 1. I think (my opinion) that you are overestimating how much Trump knows. In any case, there is no conversation to be had by signing an unconstitutional executive order.

      2. Normally, I would say the Supreme Court can’t override the Constitution either, but with the current court, all bets are off.

      3. We already did. It’s in the 14th Amendment.

  2. Excellent work, Anne. Trump has no legal authority whatsoever to end birthright citizenship. Every legal scholar knows this. He will lose on this every time.

  3. Most of Europe does not have birthright citizenship. All birthright citizenship does is encourage anchor babies and birth tourism. Imagine you are a pregnant woman–why would you travel to another country to give birth if not for some perceived benefit? People who never paid into our taxes get free food stamps and health care when they birth a baby here.

  4. Coming out of the initial disgust and mental shutdown that was my response to FOTUS’s installation, and getting excited to part of the the machine that will stop this wannabe crybaby, racist dictator.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *