Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
while nearly two dozen states are suing To stop President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, some legal experts, such as Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, say the order is perfectly legal under the 14th amendment and should be upheld by the courts.
“I strongly believe that Donald Trump is right, that we need to enforce the 14th Amendment as it was originally intended,” Spakovsky told Fox News Digital. “No doubt there will be lawsuits against it, it will go to the United States Supreme Court, and if the court follows the actual legislative intent and history, they will uphold what Donald Trump has done.”
As Trump has moved quickly to curb illegal immigration, his most controversial move so far was issuing a executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.
The order, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” states that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States” when that person’s parents are are in the US illegally or when parents The presence is lawful but temporary.
TRUMP ADMIN IS BACK ON TIME AS ACLU FILES BIRTH RIGHT CITIZENSHIP LAWSUIT: ‘READY TO FACE THEM’
Migrants in Brooklyn; President Trump (Getty Images)
Twenty-two states led by Democrats and the ACLU are suing to stop the order, arguing that it violates the 14th Amendment, which says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.”
The suit argues that “the President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.”
However, Spakovsky, who is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an authority on civil rights and immigration, told Fox News Digital that the 14th Amendment was never intended to include the children of individuals in the country illegally. legal or temporal and that this broad interpretation has led to generalization “birth tourism” and abuse
He said the key phrase that is often overlooked today is “subject to its jurisdiction,” which requires that immigrants’ allegiance be to the US, not to a foreign power.
A man plays with a child as he waits with other migrants from Venezuela near a bus station after being released from U.S. Border Patrol custody in El Paso, Texas, on September 13, 2022. (REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez)
“The 14th Amendment has two key clauses. One, you must be born in the United States, but you must also be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. All those pushing for birthright citizenship just point to that first sentence. and ignore the second,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of research on this. I’ve looked at the original passage of the 14th Amendment and what that phrase meant subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. According to the original sponsors of the 14th Amendment in Congress was that you owed your political allegiance to United States and not to a foreign government.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE
“That means that children born to foreigners who are in this country, and it doesn’t matter if they are here legally, illegally, as diplomats; if their parents are foreign citizens when they are born, they are citizens of their native fathers. land, they owe their political allegiance and are subject to the jurisdiction of those native lands. Therefore, they are not US citizens,” he said.
According to Spakovsky, the 14th amendmentwhich was ratified after the Civil War to recognize citizenship for former slaves and their descendants, was not used to confer birthright citizenship on illegal aliens until more than 100 years after it was enacted by Congress.
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S BIRTH RIGHT CITIZENSHIP EXECUTIVE ORDER FACES LEGAL CHALLENGES FROM 22 STATES
President Donald Trump participates in a ceremony commemorating the 200th mile of the border wall on the international border with Mexico in San Luis, Arizona, on June 23, 2020. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
As Democrats and left-wing groups prepare to launch a legal war with the Trump administration over the order, Spakovsky said he is confident the Supreme Court will rule in Trump’s favor.
“The problem with birthright citizenship is that it gives rights as an American citizen to people who have absolutely no allegiance and no connection to the US government, our culture, our society,” he said. “The Supreme Court should uphold this because the original meaning of the 14th Amendment clearly does not recognize birthright citizenship.”
