Trump Quietly Preps Birthright Citizenship Rollback
A new USCIS order order redraws the Fourteenth Amendment’s boundaries, sparking fears of a stateless underclass and legal chaos.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is preparing to implement a sweeping change to birthright citizenship policy that would deny automatic U.S. citizenship to some children born on American soil, according to a government implementation plan made public Friday.
The USCIS plan follows President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, issued on Inauguration Day, which reinterprets the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. The executive order asserts that children born in the United States to noncitizen mothers who are either unlawfully present or in the country on temporary legal visas — such as tourist or student visas — and whose fathers are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, are not entitled to automatic citizenship.
While a federal court injunction currently blocks the government from enforcing the order, USCIS is moving forward with a detailed framework to enact the policy if the leg…