WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump took office in 2017, he immediately issued a provocative executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries that led to chaos, confusion and a flurry of lawsuits that ended up at the Supreme Court.
If he wins the election in November, he has pledged to follow a similar course on another contentious policy proposal: ending birthright citizenship.
In May of last year, Trump released a campaign video renewing his call to end the long-standing constitutional right, saying he would sign an executive order on day one of his presidency that would ensure that children born to parents who do not have legal status in the U.S. will not be considered U.S. citizens.
“The United States is among the only countries in the world that says even if neither parent is a citizen or even lawfully in the country, their future children are automatic citizens the moment the parents trespass onto our soil,” Trump said in the video.
Birthright citizenship has long been understood to be required under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The language was included in the constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War to ensure that Black former slaves and their children were recognized as citizens.
The phrase has been generally understood by legal scholars of all ideological stripes to be self-explanatory,…
