By Kolawole Ojebisi
There are indications that the new president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, may scrap privileges of birthright citizenship for children whose parents lack legal immigration status.
The move is said to be among the 10 executive actions on his first day in office aimed at reshaping federal immigration and border policy.
This likely move by the Trump administration was gleaned from the remarks of one of the incoming officials of the new administration hours before Trump’s inauguration as the 47th US president.
“The federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,” Reuters quoted an incoming White House official as saying on Monday.
“We are also going to enhance vetting and screening of illegal aliens.” The 14th amendment to the US Constitution says: “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”.
Interpretations of the law in the US mean that those born on American soil are citizens at birth, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
The attempt to revoke the privilege mirrors Trump’s hardline stance against immigration.
Some of the brawny decisions that are reportedly on the president-elect’s to-do list include tasking the military with border enforcement, designating cartels and gangs as terrorist groups, and shutting down asylum and refugee admission.
