Trump signed new executive orders regarding U.S. citizenship by birth
U.S. President Donald Trump signed two new executive orders aimed at restricting the automatic acquisition of U.S. citizenship by birth and combating so-called “birth tourism.”
The president signed the documents after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that blocked Trump’s previous executive order restricting the right to citizenship based on place of birth.
During the signing ceremony, the president called the court’s decision unfair.
“We received a very unfortunate decision from the Supreme Court regarding birthright citizenship. It was passed by a narrow margin, but it is a very, very unfortunate decision. So we are making adjustments because this is very unfair,” Trump said.
One of the new executive orders expands the list of categories of individuals whose children will not be eligible for automatic U.S. citizenship.
The list specifically includes:
- “foreign enemies of the United States”;
- members of foreign terrorist organizations;
- children of diplomats;
- children of employees of international organizations.
Thus, the Trump administration continues its efforts to revise the approach to applying the birthright citizenship principle.
The second executive order is directly aimed at “birth tourism”—the practice whereby foreign nationals travel to the U.S. primarily to give birth to a child who automatically receives U.S. citizenship.
Trump stated that, in his view, this practice contradicts the original intent of the constitutional provision.
“Wealthy people are building businesses around birthright citizenship. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. It’s a disgrace. They’re buying their way into the country, and we won’t let that happen,” said the U.S. president.
According to Trump, hundreds of thousands of people engage in “birth tourism” every year.
At the same time, the scale of the practice cited by Trump differs significantly from experts’ estimates.
According to The Hill, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that the number of children born in the U.S. each year as a result of “birth tourism” is approximately 26,000 at most.
By comparison, there are more than 3.5 million births in the U.S. each year.
Civil rights organizations have already announced their readiness to challenge the new presidential executive orders in court.
Thus, the Trump administration’s fight to restrict birthright citizenship is likely to continue in the courts, and the final legal implications of the new decisions have yet to be determined.
U.S. President Donald Trump also denied reports of a conflict with Defense Secretary Pete Hegset over the reduction of U.S. weapons stockpiles. According to the president, reports of disputes and problems with ammunition are false rumors. Trump stated that he is satisfied with Hegset’s work and described him as highly respected in military circles.
The first Trump-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile cruiser, named the USS Defiant, could become the most expensive warship in history. Its cost is estimated at $23.4 billion, exceeding the price of a Gerald R. Ford-class supercarrier.
