Imagine running a country facing crumbling infrastructure, skyrocketing living costs, and massive economic anxieties. What does the leader of the free world do? Naturally, he picks up a pen, bypasses Congress entirely, and attempts to rewrite the United States Constitution by executive order. Because nothing says steady governance like picked apart legal battles over where a baby happens to take its very first breath.
US President Donald Trump signed two brand new executive orders this week aimed at crushing birth tourism and restricting birthright citizenship. It marks his latest attempt to bypass the legal system after the Supreme Court shot down his previous attempt just a few months ago.
How does birthright citizenship work?
The new orders seek to ban automatic citizenship for babies born on US soil if their non-citizen parents have links to foreign terrorist groups, work for foreign governments, or reside in specific unincorporated territories.
Our QtrlyEdition investigation team took a close look at the fine print, and the logistics are an absolute joke. Policy experts immediately pointed out the obvious flaw. How on earth does a maternity ward nurse determine if an expectant mother has ties to a foreign terrorist organisation? Does the onus of proof fall on border agents, hospital staff, or the newborn infant?
Trump claimed that hundreds of thousands of babies arrive via birth tourism every single year. Yet official data from the Centers for Disease Control tells a completely different story. Out of nearly four million annual births in America, foreign residents account for roughly nine thousand five hundred. Independent research places the maximum figure around twenty six thousand, making up less than one percent of total births. But why let actual facts get in the way of a brilliant political scare tactic?
What happened at the Supreme Court?
When government lawyers brought this arguments to the Supreme Court earlier this year, they claimed the US Constitution never intended to grant citizenship to eight billion people one flight away. Chief Justice John Roberts shut down that exact argument with seven simple words: it is a new world, it is the same Constitution.
The Fourteenth Amendment has protected soil based citizenship since the Civil War. Over thirty nations across the globe, including Canada and most of South America, practice unrestricted birthright citizenship. But American politicians continue to sell the public a narrative that foreign mothers are invading the nation purely to exploit hospital delivery rooms.
We watch politicians construct massive legal distractions to whip up their political base, while doing absolutely nothing to fix actual border policies or immigration systems. It is pure political theatre designed to keep people arguing over flags and birth certificates instead of holding leaders accountable for real issues.
Do other countries have birthright citizenship?
Trump has repeatedly said the US is one of the only major countries that grants birthright citizenship.
In fact, more than 30 countries practise automatic “jus soli” and without restriction in almost all cases. They include Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, as well as most other countries in Central and South America.
The US and Canada are the only two countries considered “developed” nations by the International Monetary Fund that grant mostly unrestricted birthright citizenship.
Other countries, like the UK and Australia, allow for a modified version where citizenship is automatically granted if one parent is a citizen or permanent resident.
If you appreciate news reporting that tears down political hysteria and gives you the actual numbers, feel free to pass this article on to someone who needs a reality check.
Related Topics: North America
