Former President Trump said in a campaign video Tuesday that he would ban birthright citizenship through an executive order if elected president again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Declaring the order would ensure that the children of undocumented immigrants \u201cwill not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” he said he’d sign the executive order on the first day of his presidency if elected in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump’s argued the policy would \u201cchoke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming and encourage many of the aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In justifying his move, Trump also amplified anti-immigrant sentiment, claiming that undocumented immigrants \u201ccome by the millions\u201d from \u201cmental institutions,\u201d prisons and other places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he tried to brush off the constitutional arguments against his proposal by arguing the current reading of the 14th Amendment from which birthright citizenship stems is \u201ca historical myth and a willful misinterpretation of the law.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not the first time that Trump has suggested he\u2019d seek to make the constitutionally-questionable change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early in his 2015 presidential campaign, Trump first outlined<\/a> his campaign policy proposal to \u201cend birthright citizenship\u201d \u2014 a position at the time that led several other Republican candidates, who saw Trump\u2019s polling position not falter despite his hard-right tact on immigration, to respond in agreement with him<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then in 2018, just days before the November midterm elections, then-President Trump again flirted with the idea of banning birthright citizenship, floating in an interview with Axios<\/a> that he\u2019d sign an executive order to do so: \u201cIt was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time, then-Speaker Paul Ryan responded to the proposal by saying, \u201cYou can\u2019t do something like this via executive order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump never signed such an executive order during his presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n