US President Donald Trump has signed two new executive orders aimed at restricting birthright citizenship, reviving one of his administration’s key immigration policies after the US Supreme Court struck down an earlier attempt as unconstitutional.
Gatekeepers News reports that the latest directives seek to narrow the categories of people eligible for automatic US citizenship by birth and intensify the government’s crackdown on so-called “birth tourism.”
One of the executive orders targets foreign nationals who travel to the United States primarily to give birth so their children can automatically obtain American citizenship. The second order seeks to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the US in certain circumstances, including where parents are found to have fraudulently obtained entry into the country. The White House argued that the measures are intended to protect the integrity of American citizenship and curb abuse of the immigration system.
The new orders come weeks after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s broader bid to end birthright citizenship, ruling that the policy conflicted with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
The administration has now adopted a narrower legal approach, claiming the latest actions fall within recognised constitutional exceptions. However, immigration advocates and legal experts have already indicated they are preparing fresh court challenges, arguing that the new measures still violate constitutional protections.
Explaining the new actions, the White House said the orders are aimed at “protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship” and “ending birth tourism,” which it described as a practice that exploits US immigration laws.
The administration maintains that the policy is necessary to prevent misuse of the country’s citizenship system, while critics insist that birthright citizenship remains a constitutional guarantee that cannot be changed through executive action alone.
