Featured Image: yourNEWS Media Illustration
The measures seek to deny automatic citizenship in several specific circumstances, including commercial birth tourism, fraudulent entry, certain foreign government employment and designated enemy activity.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Thursday aimed at restricting automatic U.S. citizenship for some children born in the United States, including those whose parents enter the country through commercial birth tourism arrangements.
WATCH:
The new measures represent the administration’s second effort to narrow birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court limited the use of nationwide injunctions in June against Trump’s broader executive order on the issue.
One order targets foreign nationals who enter the United States primarily to give birth so their children can obtain American citizenship. The practice is commonly known as birth tourism.
According to Axios, the administration argues that mothers who gain entry under false pretenses for the purpose of giving birth fall within an established exception to birthright citizenship because their admission was obtained through fraud.
The order also seeks to prohibit the use of surrogate mothers in commercial birth tourism operations. Its provisions would apply only to future births.
Trump’s second order directs the secretaries of State and Homeland Security to develop regulations and guidance intended to disrupt the birth tourism industry both within the United States and abroad.
Existing federal regulations already prohibit foreign nationals from obtaining tourist visas when their primary purpose is to give birth in the United States so their child can acquire citizenship. Immigration officers may also deny entry when they determine that childbirth for citizenship purposes is the principal reason for a traveler’s visit.
The administration is additionally seeking to expand several exceptions to automatic citizenship that it argues are supported by longstanding constitutional principles.
One provision would deny birthright citizenship to children born to certain foreign government employees stationed in the United States. The existing exemption generally applies to the children of foreign diplomats and ambassadors.
Another provision would apply to children born to people designated as “alien enemies,” including members of organizations classified by the federal government as terrorist groups, according to Axios.
A separate section addresses births in U.S. territories. Under the proposal, automatic citizenship in the territories would end only if Congress first changes existing federal law.
Legislation seeking such a change was introduced last month but is not expected to advance, Axios reported.
The executive orders are expected to produce immediate legal challenges from immigration advocates, civil rights organizations and Democratic-led states. Opponents are likely to argue that the measures violate the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Constitutional scholars and groups that challenged Trump’s earlier order have maintained that the Supreme Court’s June ruling left broad birthright citizenship protections intact. Those organizations have indicated they are prepared to return to court if the administration imposes new restrictions.
The administration contends that the Supreme Court’s decision did not foreclose narrower exceptions involving fraudulent entry, diplomats, hostile foreign actors and other categories it says have historically fallen outside the full protections of birthright citizenship.
On June 30, the Supreme Court restricted lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions against Trump’s broader executive order, which he signed on his first day back in office. That order sought to deny automatic citizenship to certain children born in the United States to noncitizen parents.
The new executive orders take a more targeted approach by focusing on categories the administration argues are not fully covered by the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to people born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction.
Original article
Comments