Trump makes new attempt to limit automatic U.S. citizenship

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has signed two new executive orders seeking to restrict automatic U.S. citizenship for certain children born in the United States and to crack down on so-called “birth tourism.”

The new effort follows a June Supreme Court ruling rejecting Trump's earlier, broader attempt to deny automatic citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and others. The Court held that birthright citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Trump's latest measures are narrower. They target, among others, certain children of people working in the United States on behalf of foreign governments, cases involving fraud in obtaining citizenship, and people classified by the U.S. government as “alien enemies.”

A second order focuses on “birth tourism,” in which pregnant women travel to the United States primarily to give birth so that their child receives U.S. citizenship. The administration wants authorities to have greater ability to deny visas when that is believed to be the main purpose of travel.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, the highest estimate puts birth-tourism cases at about 26,000 a year, less than 1% of the more than 3.5 million annual births in the United States.

The measures are expected to face legal challenges. Civil rights group ACLU argues that a presidential executive order cannot override the constitutional protection of birthright citizenship.