Could Trump really kill birthright citizenship?

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Trump has made it a goal to end birthright citizenship, a fight that is putting the Constitution to the test. Hiroshi Motomura is the Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law and faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how birthright citizenship came to be, what the Trump administration’s challenge looks like, and what it means for immigrants and their families living in the U.S. today.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When babies are born in this country, there are no special applications for citizenship, no tests to pass.
0:16.5	Since the ratification of the 14th Amendment back in 1868, if you come into the world on
0:21.7	U.S. soil, you are officially and permanently an American.
0:25.8	But President Trump thinks that's a bad deal for the country, at least when it comes
0:29.6	to babies whose parents don't have official permission to live here.
0:33.6	From KERA in Dallas, this is think.
0:36.3	I'm Chris Boyd. The president signed an executive order on the day of his inauguration, declaring an end to birthright citizenship for babies born in this country without at least one parent with U.S. citizenship or legal residency rights.
0:50.3	Nearly two dozen states immediately filed lawsuits challenging that. And on Wednesday, a federal judge in Maryland issued a preliminary nationwide injunction blocking the executive order.
1:01.0	That injunction will most likely stay in place until a higher court takes up the issue.
1:05.0	So setting aside the executive order for a moment, what are the chances the president's allies in Congress could mount an effort to change the Constitution? And if this were to happen, would the end of birthright citizenship change what it means to be an American?
1:19.6	Hiroshima Nomura is here to talk about this. He is Susan Westerberg-Prager, distinguished professor of law Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration
1:28.5	Law and Policy at UCLA.
1:30.8	His book is called Borders and Belonging toward a Fair Immigration Policy.
1:35.0	Hiroshi, welcome to think.
1:36.0	Thank you for having me.
1:38.0	Well, you start by defining the term birthright citizenship for us.
1:42.9	What does it mean that we currently automatically extend
1:45.0	this to virtually every baby born in the U.S.? Well, birthright citizenship actually consists
1:50.2	of two parts, and we're focusing on one of them. The two parts, one is that you can, it simply
1:54.9	means born a citizen, so you can be born a citizen because you have one or two U.S. citizen
2:00.2	parents, but that's not what we're talking, and regardless of where. citizen parents, but that's not what we're talking,
2:01.9	and regardless of where you're born, and that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking
	...

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