Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is advocating getting rid of birthright citizenship, the longstanding right of anyone born on U.S. soil to be given citizenship. Legal experts say accomplishing that goal won’t be easy.
told PolitiFact that it couldn’t be done easily and that the most an executive order would do is prompt a high-stakes court battle. Depending on how the courts ruled, overturning birthright citizenship might necessitate a constitutional amendment, a much more daunting hurdle.
This amendment, ratified in 1868,"was unquestionably intended to cover the children of unauthorized migrants, namely the children of enslaved persons brought here by criminals after the prohibition of the slave trade," said Gabriel Chin, a law professor at the University of California-Davis. "The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens. … The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States," the court’s majority wrote in its decision.
Traditionally, this phrase has been interpreted to exclude only the U.S.-born children of foreign diplomats or of enemy forces engaged in hostilities on U.S. soil. But people skeptical of birthright citizenship’s legal basis have argued that the Supreme Court hason whether the children of illegal immigrants would qualify for birthright citizenship, since that wasn’t at issue in the Wong Kim Ark case.
"If it's mandated by the Constitution, it can only be undone by a constitutional amendment," Spiro said."If it's mandated by statute, it can only be undone by a subsequent statute. It's only if it's mandated by neither that could do it by executive order."
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