Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump on Monday argued that the United States is unique in continuing to debate birthright citizenship, as his administration’s effort to limit the policy heads to the Supreme Court.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment has strayed from its original purpose.
“Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America,” he wrote.
“It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!” the president added, referring to the amendment’s origins following the Civil War.
President Trump also criticized what he described as abuse of the system through practices sometimes called “birth tourism,” in which foreign nationals travel to the United States to give birth.
“The World is getting rich selling citizenships to our Country,” he said.
The comments come as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on Wednesday on an executive order issued by Trump that seeks to limit automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The order centers on the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which grants citizenship to those born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Supporters of Trump’s policy argue that the clause has been interpreted too broadly and should not apply to children of people in the country unlawfully or temporarily.
Critics, however, point to longstanding legal precedent, including the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that individuals born on U.S. soil are citizens regardless of their parents’ nationality. Legal experts say that precedent has guided U.S. citizenship policy for more than a century.
The debate has revived broader questions about the original intent of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, in part, to overturn the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision and to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people.