US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he would be abolishing birthright citizenship on Day 1 of taking charge for his second term. This right has been part of the US Constitution for more than 150 years. It states that a person born in the US is an American citizen. Trump had even suggested this in his first term. Such a provision might also affect Indians and their birthright citizenship in the US.
Trump called birthright citizenship a "ridiculous" concept.
Dozens of countries across the world, including neighbouring Canada, have enshrined the right to citizenship by birth. It was hotly debated after a **[claim that Indians were fuelling birth tourism in Canada](https://www.indiatoday.in/world/canada-news/story/indians-driving-birth-tourism-canada-citizenship-truth-nigerians-china-immigrants-trudeau-british-columbia-2635278-2024-11-19)**.
In an interview with CBS News, Trump called birthright citizenship "the biggest magnet for illegal immigration" to the US.
Trump said he planned to remove the provision through an executive order in his first term but his focus turned to the concerns that came with the pandemic, reported CBS News.
### AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP BY BIRTH INTRODUCED IN 1868 AFTER CIVIL WAR
The US Congress passed the 14th Amendment in 1866, after the American Civil War. In 1868, the amendment was ratified and it extended citizenship to people born on US soil, removing the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which prohibited slaves and descendants of slaves from becoming citizens.
This birthright citizenship became the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
"All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside", reads the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
But how will it impact millions of Americans living in India?
### WILL THE END OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP IMPACT INDIANS?
Indian Americans are over 5.4 million in the US. They account for 1.47% of the total US population and over two-thirds are immigrants and 34% were born in the US.
In 2019, the Migration Policy Institute stated that 5.5 million children below the age of 18 lived in the US with at least one parent as an illegal immigrant in the country. They even represented 7% of the US child population, according to the Associated Press.
Any amendment to birthright citizenship could pose significant challenges to children born in the US to Indians with green cards and on H-1B visas. They might not become American citizens like they do now and resort to naturalisation or other legal remedies.
"Trump's planned Executive Order on birthright citizenship will hurt 1-2 million Indian-Americans who are stuck in the Green Card queue or are on non-immigrant visas," said a person, who claimed to be a first-generation immigrant to the US, on X.
A landmark case on birthright citizenship was seen in 1898, when the US Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was an American citizen because he was there even when the federal government had denied him entry, reports CNN.
Opponents of birthright citizenship argue that it applies only to children whose both parents were legal immigrants to America, but aren't clear if it applies to children whose one or both parents do not have legal status in the US.
“Simply crossing the border and having a child should not entitle anyone to citizenship,” said Eric Ruark, director of research for NumbersUSA, which speaks in favour of reduced immigration, told The Associated Press.
Trump has said that his executive order will make it “clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic US citizenship.”
Both Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, have discussed this intent.
“If you come in the country and have a child, that’s on you. You can either take the child with you, but that’s on you,” Homan said.
Even in his last term, Trump tried to restrict visas for pregnant women coming to the US to stop birth tourism.
### THE DEBATE ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP. WILL TRUMP SETTLE IT?
Opponents of birthright tourism have highlighted how it was brought in to remove the provision of citizenship by race. But now it is being misused.
"If somebody sets a foot — just a foot, one foot, you don't need two — on our land, congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America," Trump said. "We're going to end that because it's ridiculous."
It would not be easy to bring this into practice.
Trump said that he might have to initiate a constitutional amendment to end the right, if needed. He will also try to implement it through every possible executive order.
But that might not be easy either.
The only time in US history a constitutional amendment has been done away with was the 18th Amendment prohibiting the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicant liquors, which was repealed in 1933 by the addition of the 21st Amendment. No other time has an amendment been repealed in the US.
With Trump threatening to do away with birthright citizenship, the future of hundreds of thousands of Indians might hang in the balance.