Yesterday, President Donald Trump said once again he is considering an executive order to end “birthright citizenship,” which he calls “ridiculous.”
Birthright citizenship allows babies born in America from illegal immigrant mothers to immediately gain American citizenship.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters, “You walk over the border, have a baby, congratulations – the baby is now a U.S. citizen. We’re looking at that very, very seriously.”
Last year Trump also announced his intentions to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship.
“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 for 85 years, with all of those benefits,” Trump said in an interview released in October 2018. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 7.5% of all births in the U.S. (about 300,000 births per year) are to illegal immigrants.
The Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are 4.1 million birthright citizenship children in the United States.
