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President Donald Trump is intensifying his hardline immigration rhetoric heading into the midterm elections, declaring that he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States.
Trump made the comments to "Axios on HBO" ahead of elections that he has sought to focus on his hardline immigration policies. Trump, seeking to energise his supporters and help Republicans keep control of the Congress, has stoked anxiety about a caravan of Central American migrants making its way to the US-Mexico border. He is dispatching additional troops and saying he'll set up tent cities for asylum seekers.
Asked about the legality of such an executive order, Trump said, "they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." He added that "we're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States."
An excerpt of the interview was posted on Axios' website on Tuesday, 30 October.
Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said Tuesday said the Constitution is very clear.
Jadwat said the president has an obligation to uphold the Constitution. Trump can try to get Congress to pass a constitutional amendment, "but I don't think they are anywhere close to getting that."
In the final days before the 6 November midterms, Trump has emphasised immigration, as he seeks to counter Democratic enthusiasm. Trump believes that his campaign pledges, including his much-vaunted and still-unfulfilled promise to quickly build a US-Mexico border wall, are still rallying cries for his base and that this latest focus will further erode the enthusiasm gap.
Trump voiced his theory that birthright citizenship could be stripped during his campaign, when he described it as a "magnet for illegal immigration." During a 2015 campaign stop in Florida, he said: "The birthright citizenship – the anchor baby – birthright citizenship, it's over, not going to happen."
The 14th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 during the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. It was ratified in 1868 by three-fourths of the states. By extending citizenship to those born in the US, the amendment nullified an 1857 Supreme Court decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford), which ruled that those descended from slaves could not be citizens.
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