President Donald Trump says wealthy foreigners are abusing the nation’s birthright citizenship policy to bring their foreign relatives to the United States after having secured citizenship through their U.S.-born children.
During an interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns, Trump said he hopes the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) overturns the birthright citizenship policy, where the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens and other foreign nationals are rewarded birthright American citizenship though the parents have no ties to the U.S.
“The case is very interesting because that case was meant for the babies of slaves and if you look at the dates on the case, it was exactly having to do with the Civil War,” Trump said of the intended use of birthright citizenship:
That case was not meant from some rich person coming from another country, dropping… putting a foot in our country, and all of a sudden their whole family becomes, you know, United States citizens. That case is all about slaves, the babies of slaves, and it was a good reason for doing it. And that’s all it was about, and people now are understanding it. It’s been explained to ’em. And I think the court understands it, too. That would be a devastating decision if we lose that case. [Emphasis added]
Trump said the U.S. “cannot afford to house tens of millions of people that came in through birthright citizenship.”
Last year, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) shed light on the growing problem of wealthy Chinese nationals having their children in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for the sole purpose of securing birthright American citizenship.
“Since 2009, Communist Chinese passport holders have been permitted to sidestep the U.S visa requirements to enter the Northern Mariana Islands through categorical parole,” Tiffany said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last year.
“There are more children being born via birth tourism on the Northern Mariana Islands right now than there are domestic children being born,” Tiffany noted. “They don’t even have to have a visa to come in here.”
The U.S.-born children of illegal aliens and other foreign nationals, often referred to as “anchor babies,” are rewarded with birthright citizenship despite their parents having no legitimate ties to the U.S., many having only recently arrived. Years later, when the child is considered an adult, they can sponsor their parents and foreign relatives for green cards — anchoring their family in the U.S. for generations.
In 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that about 225,000 to 250,000 anchor babies were delivered to illegal alien parents, accounting for about seven percent of all U.S. births that year.
SCOTUS has never explicitly ruled that the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens must be granted birthright citizenship, and many legal scholars dispute the idea.
Many leading conservative scholars argue the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not provide mandatory birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens or foreign nationals because these children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction as that language was understood when the 14th Amendment was ratified.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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