US lawmakers reject Trump birthright citizenship plan

US lawmakers have expressed their opposition to President Donald Trump’s proposal that he intends to sign an executive order to end the automatic right to citizenship for anyone born in the United States.

Trump said on Tuesday that he would issue an executive order for this purpose; however, declining to talk about the specific actions he would take to pursue the plan.

According to the 14th Amendment of the US constitution, all people born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the country and of the State where they reside in. This cannot be changed by the president and requires Congress to decide over the issue.

PressTV-Trump says he will ban birthright citizenship

President Donald Trump says he will seek to limit the right of citizenship for certain children born in the United States.

US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan rejected Trump's stated push to eliminate birthright citizenship via executive order, saying that the move was not possible.

"Well, you obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," Ryan said in an interview with radio station WVLK. "We didn’t like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives, we believe in the Constitution.”

The top Republican in Congress, who is retiring at the end of his term, said an executive order would not adhere to the 14th Amendment and that there was a better way to address the country's "unchecked illegal immigration."

“I think the smarter, faster solution here is to crack down on illegal immigration and obliviously support doing that,” he said. "But I'm a believer in the Constitution, I believe in interpreting the Constitution as written, and that means you can't so something like this via executive order."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blasted the US president's proposal, stating that Trump was trying to divert attention from other issues ahead of next week's midterm elections.

“The President does not have the power to erase parts of the Constitution, but he and the GOP Congress have spent two years trying to erase protections for people with pre-existing conditions," she said in a statement.

“Clearly, Republicans will do absolutely anything to divert attention away from their votes to take away Americans’ health care,” Pelosi added.

US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said he believed it would take a constitutional amendment to change birthright citizenship.

"I am not a lawyer but it seems to me it would take a constitutional amendment to change that as opposed to an executive order," Grassley told an Iowa CBS station.

Grassley said he would “closely review” any order from Trump, but he indicated that any policy changes on immigration should be left to Congress.

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, denounced Trump’s plans as ill-timed and misguided.

“Aside from being unconstitutional, such an executive order would exacerbate racial tensions, exploit fears and drive further polarization across the country at a moment that calls for unity and inclusion,” Clarke said.

Speaking about Trump’s comments, Republican Senator Justin Amash said that “A president cannot amend [the] Constitution or laws via executive order.”

Constitutional scholars and legal experts have also dismissed the idea, saying a president has no legal standing to end birthright citizenship with an executive order

In 2014, about 275,000 babies were born to unauthorized-immigrant parents, about 7% of the four million births that year, according to a Pew Research Center report on government data.

Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project, said the ACLU would likely challenge Trump’s order if he takes executive action.

“I think the question will get presented quickly if he moves forward with this and — again, quickly — the courts will rule against him," he said. “The notion the president would move forward with this really underlines his hostility to the rule of law, his hostility to the Constitution and to the principles that really make America great.”

Trump sparked a national debate over birthright citizenship when he suggested during an interview aired on Tuesday that he could unilaterally change the Constitution.

"It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said during an interview with Axios.

"You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order," the president added, before falsely claiming 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 ... with all of those benefits."

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement that he would introduce legislation to support the US president’s plan to limit American citizenship to certain children born in the country.

Graham said his measure would be “along the same lines” as the executive order that Trump earlier told Axios, without providing any details or timeline.

Graham also praised Trump, saying, “Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship.”

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