{"id":1912,"date":"2026-08-07T22:43:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:43:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:43:38","slug":"trumps-deja-vu-moment-on-birthright-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1912","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s D\u00e9j\u00e0-Vu Moment on Birthright Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If at first you don\u2019t succeed, appeal to a higher federal court. And if you even lose at the Supreme Court \u2026 just try again anyway.<\/p>\n

This seems to be President Trump\u2019s approach to limiting birthright citizenship. Last year, he issued an executive order that purports to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship to babies born in the United States\u2014as has been the norm since the late 19th century. Despite Trump visiting oral arguments in an apparent attempt to intimidate the justices, the Supreme Court struck down the order this June.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Trump attempted to do some of the same things via new executive orders. One is intended to deny automatic citizenship to children born to people living in the United States while working for a foreign government and children of people declared to be terrorists or adversaries of the U.S. It would also deny citizenship to people born in U.S. territories if Congress passes a proposed law allowing that, creating a new group of stateless people. The second order is intended to prevent the practice of \u201cbirth tourism,\u201d in which people visiting the United States on tourist visas give birth to babies who are then U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

Legal experts and advocates say the orders are unconstitutional, and they are certain to be challenged in court. Trump\u2019s loss at the Supreme Court seems to make these orders a long shot. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion for the Court, \u201cchildren born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States\u201d satisfy the relevant conditions and thus \u201cunder the Constitution, they are citizens at birth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The language in the orders about \u201calien enemies\u201d is another likely area for dispute, not because anyone is eager to welcome the children of bona fide adversaries but because this administration has made absurd claims about illegal immigration constituting an \u201cinvasion,\u201d which makes no sense on its face and has been rejected by federal judges.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s announcement of the orders at the White House yesterday was full of fabrications, exaggerations, and lies. Trump claimed that the Fourteenth Amendment \u201cwas meant for the babies of slaves. It was\u2014it was right after\u2014one week or two weeks after the Civil War ended.\u201d In fact, it passed three years later, in 1868. The presidential adviser Stephen Miller echoed the same idea, saying that the amendment \u201chad no other meaning and purpose outside of that, and that\u2019s been clear, obviously, since the day that it was passed.\u201d When a politician uses the word obviously<\/i>\u2014like frankly<\/i>\u2014that\u2019s a good sign that what follows will be neither obvious nor true. If this had been obvious since 1868, the U.S. wouldn\u2019t have acted otherwise for more than a century, and the Supreme Court would have ruled in favor of the administration.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s claims about birth tourism were even further off base. The president isn\u2019t making the idea up\u2014just wildly exaggerating it. Asked by a reporter how many people are engaging in the practice, Trump said, \u201cI can tell you right now. Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands.\u201d This number appears to be pulled out of thin air. During Supreme Court oral arguments, Solicitor General John Sauer, arguing on behalf of Trump, was asked how commonly birth tourism occurs and replied, \u201cNo one knows for sure.\u201d In 2020, the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports much stricter laws, estimated the number at between 20,000 and 26,000 births each year, out of roughly 3.6 million babies born in the United States.<\/p>\n

Read more Sadism and a Blue Bunny<\/a><\/p>\n

By attempting to end or restrict birthright citizenship in order to address these issues, Trump is trying to use a bulldozer to achieve a task that calls for a small mallet. The law already prohibits fraudulent visa applications, and the Justice Department has prosecuted people for birth tourism in the past. Trying to undermine birthright citizenship risks jettisoning one of the fundamental bases of modern American society to deal with a minor challenge.<\/p>\n

Trump could have tried another path. Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered the White House a potential lifeline in his concurrence in the birthright case, suggesting that despite the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress could pass a law altering birthright citizenship. The likelihood of such a bill succeeding seems very low, and pushing it through would require sustained attention from Trump. Instead, he\u2019s trying to achieve his goals through executive orders, which are both easily reversed by a future president and have already proved unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

But the president has a demonstrated weakness for this kind of grand, overreaching presidential gesture. Last month, after a member of the U.S. men\u2019s national soccer team was suspended for a game in the World Cup, Trump decided to use his position to exert some pressure, calling FIFA President Gianni Infantino to try to get the suspension waived. In a direct sense, it worked\u2014FIFA allowed the player to participate\u2014but it may have backfired. Belgium, the American opponent, was incensed, and trounced the United States 4\u20131. Trump ended up looking obnoxious and corrupt, but didn\u2019t even get a victory out of it. The player in question, by the way, was Folarin Balogun\u2014a U.S. citizen by birth because his mother, while pregnant and visiting family, got stuck in the United States.<\/p>\n

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