President Donald Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders to deny birthright citizenship and target “birth tourism” less than a month after the Supreme Court blocked him from his earlier attempts to repeal the constitutional guarantee.
This came in the wake of a 6-3 ruling handed down by the Supreme Court on June 30 where it determined that the Constitution affords citizenship to nearly every baby born in the United States.
During an Oval Office event, Trump described the Supreme Court decision as “very, very unfortunate,” arguing that the 14th Amendment was originally intended for “the babies of slaves” and not for what he characterized as people “building businesses around it.”
The first executive order tries to limit those eligible for birthright citizenship in the country, excluding the children of members of foreign terrorist organizations or workers of foreign governments in the United States. The second order tries to bar the issuance of visas to the foreigners who are pregnant and are suspected of “birth tourism.”
Lawyers and immigration advocates believe that both orders will immediately find themselves in courts, just like the last one issued by Trump. The American Civil Liberties Union has already said that this order will also be thrown out of court.
The real extent of birth tourism is unknown because figures released by the CDC and the Center for Immigration Studies show that only a tiny percentage of the 3.6 million children born in America each year fall into the category of tourists.
There is also no idea of how the two executive orders can actually be implemented considering the third one involves American territories.
2026-08-07 19:40:00
