Not exactly. The 14th Amendment states in relevant part : " All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States..." The key phrase here is "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." People lawfully in the country are subject to its jurisdiction. So are their offspring. An invading army would not be, and their offspring would clearly not be entitled to birthright citizenship. Where do illegal aliens fit in? Are they more like lawful residents or are they more like an invading army? The Supreme Court has never directly answered the question. U.S. v. Won Kim Ark is widely credited with establishing the principle that presence in the US is all that is required to confer birthright citizenship, but that case turned on the issue of whether the parents could be citizens of another country, not on whether they were in the US legally. I think it is arguable that Won Kim was wrongly decided. The 14th Amendment, the Constitution's Pandora's Box, was poorly drafted but it seems hard to believe the drafters intended to sanction tourism citizenship. The case itself can be distinguished as illegal immigration was not involved.
There are flaws in the way that the constitution is interpreted and applied that are not necessarily flaws in the constitution itself. That is what the Court addresses. The legal/consitutional issue hinges on the clause in the constitution stating "subject to the jurisdiction." ie. is a child born to an illegal or to a hit-and-run chinese birth tourist truly a child born to a person "subject to the jurisdiction" of the united states within the meaning of that clause or are they just passers-by or unattached to a jurisdiction. It is given that they are subject to the criminal laws just by being here even if illegally but does that meet the constitutional test and intent is the question.
Here is what the author of the 14th amendment said on the Senate Floor----"The 14th amendment will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of person." --So as you can see Trump has every right to file this EO and will likely do so to get a precedent set in The Courts.
Trump is a genius. He gave you all talking points that don't involve a derange alt-righter killing minorities.
The usual anti-American crowd, eg ACLU, are out decrying Trump's action as an attempt to amend the Constitution by Executive Order. Whatever the merits of the dispute, this is clearly wrong. Birthright citizenship for illegals is not spelled out in the Constitution nor was it addressed by Won Ark, the 120 year old poorly reasoned decision upon which it rests. Granting citizenship to the offspring of illegals is merely an administrative policy based on that opinion, and as such, can be changed by Presidential order. Many have argued over the years for this to happen, as it is the only way to set up a definitive Supreme Court decision.
If the amendment meant that birthright citizenship was meant for all, then Congreff would not have had to go back and grant Native Americans citizenship in the 1920s.
This shows what a poor decision Won Ark was. The Court basically read the "jurisdiction" qualification out of the Amendment. Their interpretation made it totally superfluous. The correct interpretation is that "subject to the jurisdiction" means not a citizen of another country. The Court interpreted it to mean "present within the country and subject to its laws." Even that would exclude illegals as they made a purposeful decision to defy the country's laws.
Correct in toto. The SCOTUS has never ruled on birthright citizenship and Trump will push this now so that it does. Not that he needs the ruling as he has the right to do this, but the position of the left will need to be struck down.
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/.../nations-granting-birthright-citizenship.html Birthright citizenship is fairly unique. It looks like only 30 of the world's 195 countries have it. The US and Canada are the only developed nations that have it. The UK, Ireland, France, India, Australia etc. have repealed it over the past few decades. I dislike birthright citizenship, but I dislike using an EO to bypass the constitution even less.