TRUMP REGIME

Guardian - Donald Trump probably will not be able to fulfill his stated aim of ending birthright citizenship in the US when he returns to the White House, but it is perhaps more conceivable than during his first term, according to legal experts. The US constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the country, even if they are the children of undocumented immigrants.

The president-elect said he would eliminate that right during his first term and again recently said during a television interview that he planned to and could use an executive action or would “maybe have to go back to the people”. The aim comes at the same time as Trump plans to carry out mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants during his second term – an ambition that has civil liberties groups and many Democrats bracing for economic and legal chaos and protests.

But if Trump were to try to use executive action to eliminate birthright citizenship, courts would probably strike it down because of language contained in the 14th amendment, according to scholars.

Still, given the conservative majority on the supreme court – and fact that one of the people considered a candidate for the court has argued that the provision does not apply to children of “invading aliens” – it’s not a certainty that birthright citizenship will remain in place, said Amanda Frost, a University of Virginia law professor and expert in immigration and citizenship law.

“At the end of his last presidency, if I was asked, ‘Is this something he can do?’ I would have said, ‘It’s never going to happen; it’s just a talking point,’” Frost said. “The constitution text and the judicial precedent and very long-standing practice and the purpose of the provision all say, ‘No,’ but at the end of the day, the constitution means what five members of the supreme court say it means.”

Birthright citizenship dates to the passage of the 14th amendment in 1868 in the wake of the American civil war and it was intended to repeal the Dred Scott decision, in which the supreme court held that enslaved people were not citizens of the US. The amendment declared that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside”.