President Donald Trump is taking another swing at limiting so-called birth tourism and birthright citizenship, citing a “very unfortunate decision” in the Supreme Court this year that struck down his earlier attempt to curb birthright citizenship.
He signed executive orders on the subject Thursday, which appear to largely tighten laws already in place and narrow recognized exceptions.
It’s a seemingly more limited attempt compared to an executive order Trump signed last year that sought to broadly end the right for children born in the country to people who are not US citizens. The Supreme Court rejected that effort in June, citing the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil.
“We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday.
One of the executive orders signed by Trump Wednesday targets “alien enemies,” members of foreign terrorist organizations and categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments — making children born to people in those groups ineligible for birthright citizenship, said White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s immigration policies.
