In an Axios interview this week, President Trump said he planned to issue an executive order to repeal birthright citizenship, a law he described as “ridiculous.”
The legal argument against such a move is overwhelming: It would reverse about 1,000 years of Anglo-American common law and violate the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even worse, experience here and in Europe shows that ending birthright citizenship would limit how well immigrants and their descendants assimilate and become Americans.
Birthright citizenship — if you're born here, you're an American — means that every descendant of immigrants has a stake in this nation and does not grow up in a legal underclass. When the U.S.-born children of immigrants — those here with a green card or a specialized temporary work visa, those who arrived as refugees or, yes, those who are here illegally — become automatic citizens, they and their families also become part of the community. U.S. history shows it, and so does recent history in Germany.
