President-elect Donald Trump recently sat down with NBC News host Kristin Welker for a wide-ranging interview. The discussion touched on the topic of birthright citizenship amid Trump’s promise to fix the illegal immigration crisis that has plagued the United States. Among the hard-pressing questions Welker asked Trump, one asked the president-elect about his intentions to end birthright citizenship.
Getting directly to the point, Welker asked Trump, “You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one. Is that still your plan?” Trump affirmed, “Yeah, absolutely.” Delving into the details of carrying out such action, Welker replied, “The 14th amendment, though, says that, quote, ‘all persons born in the United States are citizens.’ Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?”
Trump answered, “Or maybe have to go back to the people, but we have to end it with the only country that has it … You know, we’re the only country that has it. You know, if somebody sets a foot of just a foot, one foot, you don’t need to on our land. Congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America. we’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.” As a note, the claim that America is the only country with birthright citizenship is inaccurate; most countries in the Western Hemisphere currently do, along with some elsewhere in the world, though typically more restrictions are placed on it in the European and African countries that have it
Responding to Welker who repeatedly questioned whether it would be done through executive action, Trump noted, Well, if we can through executive action, I was going to do it through executive action, but then we had to fix COVID first to be honest with you.” Continuing, Trump stressed to the “Meet the Press” host, “We have to end it.”
Trump’s commitment to ending birthright citizenship in the interview with Welker drew a massive response on social media, where conservatives expressed agreement with the idea. The Heritage Foundation commented on the clip citing the history behind the 14th Amendment, explaining why the president-elect is correct on the issue.
The organization wrote, “President-elect Trump is right. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to extend citizenship to freed slaves and their children. It was never intended to reward illegal aliens for breaking our laws. While President-elect Trump can end birthright citizenship by executive order, Congress should exercise its Section 5 powers of the 14th amendment to permanently end birthright citizenship and prevent the children of illegal aliens from automatically becoming citizens of the United States.”
Others cited the importance of the historical context behind the amendment, where one user wrote, “It’s a policy that doesn’t apply like it did in 1868! It was designed during the Civil War aftermath the portion that is being brought up had to do with the. citizenship of slaves. The way that it’s being used today has NOTHING to do with Slavery.”
Watch Trump discuss his plans to end birthright citizenship, and make the inaccurate comment about it’s prevalence, below:
Citing the firsthand consequences of birthright citizenship, one person commented, “This shouldn’t be controversial. My wife works in healthcare. We live in rural Virginia. Every week she sees dozens of young girls that “arrive” in Virginia from other countries (usually Central America) and are 8 months pregnant. They usually don’t speak English, but have government funded healthcare. They are having babies and then staying in the US. We are in rural VA and this happens thousands of times a year here. I can’t imagine the numbers in larger cities that are closer to the border.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
"*" indicates required fields