Experts pour cold water on Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship — but issue a stark warning

Tatyana Dandanpolie, Salon, Dec. 11, 2024

"[I]mmigration law and policy experts told Salon that Trump has no real legal pathway toward repealing birthright citizenship, despite his claims. Instead, they said, his insistence on pursuing the plan — alongside his call for mass deportations — will create fear among communities of immigrants and their children that will act as a deterrent. ... Depending on the exact language of Trump's proposed executive order, ending birthright citizenship could also impact U.S.-born children's parents, added Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School. Such an order could potentially prevent officials from issuing passports, Social Security numbers or providing welfare benefits to family members of those children. But Trump has no viable legal pathway to repealing birthright citizenship, Yale-Loehr told Salon in an email. An executive order can't repeal an amendment, and any executive action Trump took attempting to do so would "trigger immediate litigation." ... His proposed executive order is also unlikely to withstand any legal challenges as the likelihood of the Supreme Court, despite its conservative majority, striking birthright citizenship from the Constitution is slim to none, added Hiroshi Motomura, a UCLA School of Law professor and faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and policy.  "Even though people say that the court has become more conservative, this would be even further in the direction of trying to overturn the past than we've seen," he told Salon in a phone interview."