President Donald Trump said in an interview that he plans to sign an executive order ending “birthright citizenship” for the children of non-American citizens who are born on U.S. soil, a move that would likely be challenged immediately in the courts over its constitutionality.

…According to the 14th Amendment, “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 14th Amendment is explicit on this question: Persons born in the U.S. are citizens of the U.S. and of the states in which they reside,” said Sarah E. Turberville, director of The Constitution Project with the Project on Government Oversight.

“You can quibble over whether this is a good policy, but you can’t quibble over what the Constitution very specifically says on the manner,” she said.

…In a 1982 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that even if a person enters the country illegally, that person is within U.S. jurisdiction and “is subject to the full range of obligations imposed by the State’s civil and criminal laws. And until he leaves the jurisdiction – either voluntarily, or involuntarily in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States – he is entitled to the equal protection of the laws that a State may choose to establish.” 

“No plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful,” a footnote to the decision for Plyler v. Doe reads.

…The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, after the Civil War. It was largely intended to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and undo the 1857 Dred Scott decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens, but property.  

The concept of birthright citizenship was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark when the court affirmed the citizenship of a man born on U.S. soil to parents who were Chinese nationals. 

…Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Trump was trying to “rewrite the Constitution on his own.” 

“An executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship would be a violation of his oath of office. And it reveals who he is – a man who longs to return to the days when African Americans and members of other ethnic minorities are denied the equality promised by Jefferson and Lincoln that is enshrined in our Constitution as America’s moral North Star,” Kaine said in a statement. 

Trump vows to end birthright citizenship with executive order

hmmmmm