President Donald Trump said Monday, Oct. 29, that he is planning to sign an executive order to end the practice of giving U.S. citizenship to babies born in the United States to non-citizen parents. Trump said this in an interview with Axios on HBO.
“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump said. “You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
Such an order would seek to override the 14th Amendment, which reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The announcement received support from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said he had intentions to introduce a bill to end birthright citizenship.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. The revision guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws. It was one of three amendments passed in the Reconstruction era to abolish slavery and establish civil and legal rights for black Americans.
 
[vc_text_separator title=”Do you think President Donald Trump has the power to change the 14th Amendment?”]”I do not. I feel like that was imposed politicians who considered it deeply and I don’t think it was as though out by [Donald Trump]. I feel like they should be citizens if they were born in the US.” – Zachary Wilmore, freshman”I don’t think [Donald Trump] should be able to do that without a lot of people to agree with him. If someone is born here they get the right to be an American, and I think fighting something that is in the amendment requires a lot of power and people to agree with it.” – Rawan Ebada, junior”He doesn’t have the power because it has to go through the Senate and the House. I don’t think you can delete an amendment. He would have to like make an amendment that would nullify another amendment. At least as far as I know he doesn’t have a say in that.” – Michel Greene, junior”I think he has the power to think about it, but he doesn’t have the power to change it himself.” -Charolette Chen, sophomore