The US President has said he will issue an executive order to dump a constitutional guarantee to citizenship for anyone born on US soil in an interview with news website Axios.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, there are over four million children aged under 18 who were born in the US to illegal immigrant parents.
“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,” Mr Trump said.
In actual fact around 30 countries including Canada, Argentina and Brazil grant it, but plenty of others – Australia included – have already done away with their own citizenship right so his announcement is not so unusual.
Tapping into voters’ fears
There’s just one problem – the right to citizenship for all born there is enshrined in the US constitution. To change it requires a two-thirds majority in Congress – something the experts say just won’t happen.
But with the US midterm elections next week, we’re thinking Mr Trump is again trying to tap into voters’ fears about illegal immigration – this week he also announced more than 5,000 extra troops will be sent to the Mexican border as he warned of a migrant “invasion”.
We will find out soon if voters have been swayed by his argument or not.
On a sidenote, US ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s has also launched a new flavour – chocolate ice cream with white and dark fudge chunks, pecans, walnuts and fudge-covered almonds – this week to “lick injustice” and support activism in the US.
The name – Pecan Resist.
