Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
US President Donald Trump has signed two executive orders aimed at birth tourism and birthright citizenship, weeks after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier directive on the issue. One order is meant to deny entry to people involved in commercial “birth tourism”, while the other widens the categories of people it says are not eligible for birthright citizenship.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday after signing the orders, Trump criticised the court’s June 30 ruling and said the administration was now “making adjustments”. “We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright, it was close, but a very, very unfortunate decision. So we’re making adjustments,” he said.
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On June 30, the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, reaffirming the more than 100-year-old understanding that nearly everyone born in the United States is a citizen. Trump said the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, was introduced after the Civil War. “This was done right after the Civil War. This was for the babies of slaves, and what’s happening now? People are building businesses around it,” he said. He was flanked by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf.
Miller, who is seen as the architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, said some people enter the US as tourists but actually come to give birth so that their child becomes an automatic citizen. “It gives them access, under this broken system, to welfare benefits, ultimately to the voting booth, and all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans,” he said. One of the orders says citizenship documents should not be granted in several cases, including to children of people who engaged “in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth”. It also lists children whose parents belong to terrorist groups, children of foreign government employees, and children born in a US territory “where citizenship is not conferred by Federal statute”.
Immigration experts criticised the new orders, saying they were unconstitutional. Cyrus Mehta, a New York-based immigration attorney, said in a post on X: “Trump’s new EO on birthright citizenship is also blatantly unconstitutional when it precludes citizenship if the parents of the person engages in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States to give birth.” He added, “The meaning of commercial transaction is too vague and violates the 14th Amendment. It should be struck down.” The American Civil Liberties Union said, “The Supreme Court already decided this issue: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution. Any executive order that tries to attack birthright citizenship will meet the same fate as President Trump’s last one.” According to the Migration Policy Institute, the broadest census-based estimate puts birth tourism at 22,000 to 26,000 babies born annually on US soil, though government data show 9,600 births to mothers with foreign addresses in 2024.
The fresh orders mark Trump’s latest move on birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court’s June ruling, with the administration seeking to curb birth tourism and expand the categories it says should be excluded, even as legal and constitutional objections mount.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
