Can US President Donald Trump overturn birthright citizenship? The legal challenges explained

Donald Trump Inauguration: President Donald Trump has pledged to end birthright citizenship aimed at remaking United States of America's immigration policies as soon as he took oath of office on Monday, January 20.

He signed an executive order addressing the definition of birthright citizenship on Monday, as per media reports, though the details are unclear yet.

The Trump administration wants to end asylum access, send troops to the southern border and end birthright citizenship, an incoming White House official was quoted as saying by news agency Associated Press, hours before Trump's to return to the Oval office in the West Wing of White House in Washington DC.

Legal Challenges Loom

Birthright citizenship in United States is mentioned in the14th Amendment of the country's Constitution. Though President Trump has vowed to end the practice, yet attempts to do so would face legal hurdles.

The incoming White House official that spoke with the AP news agency before Trump's oath-taking previewed some of the orders expected on the Inauguration Day. Trump administration is geared up to make due on a campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out mass deportations, the US media reports said. The measures seemed designed to bolster border security including sending an undetermined amount of troops to the southern border, the AP said.

Trump, 78, who won the US Presidential elections in November, defeating Democrat Kamala Harris, succeeds Joe Biden.

What is birthright citizenship?

One of the key promises by Trump campaign was to end birthright citizenship — the Republican nominee's sweeping immigration efforts yet to redefine what it means to be a citizen of United States of America.

Under the existing law, birthright citizenship means anyone born in the US becomes an American citizen automatically – a rule that been in place for over a century. The rule applies to children born to someone staying in the US illegally or on a tourist or student visa who plans to return to their home country.

Trump, however, has promised to end the system of granting automatic citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants in the United States.

“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 children of illegal immigrants will not receive automatic US citizenship,” he had said.

The proposed executive order would mandate that at least one parent must be a US citizen or green card holder for their child to qualify for automatic citizenship, according to US media reports. The Trump administration would, in all likelihood, direct federal agencies to deny passports, social security numbers, and public benefits to children with two undocumented parents, the reports said.

The executive order is certain to face legal challenges. Though it’s impossible to say what the Supreme Court may ultimately decide, history isn’t on Trump’s side.

“I think that birthright citizenship is such a bedrock principle of American law that of all the things on the Trump agenda, this is the one least likely to be successful,” Hiroshi Motomura, a professor at UCLA School of Law was quoted as saying by Vox.

About 5.5 million US citizen children currently live in mixed-status households, some of them with two undocumented parents, which would have made them ineligible for automatic US citizenship under Trump’s proposed policy.

14th Amendment

Experts said that ending birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment and that there is not enough support in Congress to pass one. Some said that Trump’s proposed executive order would not hold up in courts of the country.

“President Trump cannot change the Constitution by executive order,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean at Berkeley Law school said in the Vox report.

Chemerinsky said that ending birthright citizenship by executive order contravenes the 14th Amendment, which was adopted after the Civil War to ensure that formerly enslaved people would be considered US citizens.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” reads the 14th Amendment of United States of America.

(With AP inputs)