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President Trump is expected to jumpstart the process of revoking birthright citizenship after years of proposing the constitutional amendment as a way to reduce undocumented immigration.

Birthright citizenship, meaning that a person born in the United States or its US territories is automatically a US citizen, is currently protected by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. The clause often referred to states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside.”

Trump wants to reinterpret the phrase “subject to its jurisdiction” to mean the federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents without legal status, incoming White House officials told reporters on a call Monday. on condition of anonymity to discuss future actions.

This action is likely to see immediate legal challenges.

Details on who might be affected or how he plans to move forward are yet to be seen. He is expected to sign executive orders and actions Monday afternoon.

Over the past several decades, the number of babies born to parents without legal status in the United States has been has fallen. Pew Research Center estimated that 1.3 million American-born adults are children of unauthorized immigrants, according to 2022 data, the latest available.

But immigrant rights advocates said the proposed move would affect the next generation of children. An estimated 4.7 million children would have one or both parents without legal status by 2050 under current policies, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute.

“Ending birthright citizenship would be a really big change in how we deal with immigration and the right to belong in the United States,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, adding that this law contributes to the financial and educational success rates for children of immigrants.

“Children of immigrants have had that sense of belonging and full rights in the United States that they have been able to leverage to really support their integration.”

Reinterpreting the 14th Amendment

A growing coalition of conservatives has begun promoting a different interpretation of the 14th Amendment in an effort to limit the number of undocumented migrants in the country.

During his first term, Trump’s legal advisers encouraged his ability to unilaterally challenge it. In 2020, Trump’s The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a rule change aim to reduce the practice of traveling to the United States for the specific purpose of giving birth, and at the border became pregnant women removed from a list of “vulnerable” people.

During his first presidential candidate in 2015Trump also promised to end birthright citizenship, and in 2018 he said he would issue an executive order. But that order never materialized.

Immigration re-emerged as a top issue when he campaigned in the 2024 election, with Trump promising voters he would end birthright citizenship. He repeated that goal during his first cable tv interview with NBCs Meet the press after the election.

Immigrant rights groups argue that any effort to repeal birthright citizenship will have a detrimental effect on communities, local economies and the well-being of families as families leave or live in fear that their future children may not be authorized.

“Blocking people from citizenship and even American-born children from citizenship can really threaten that integration and threaten how much children of immigrants can contribute to the country,” Gelatt said.

During the 2023 GOP primary, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and then-candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and others also called for ending birthright citizenship for children of parents without legal status.

Lawmakers have also debated the issue. In the last Congress, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced legislation to limit birthright citizenship and in 2015 The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the matter.

Yet no efforts or ideas have made progress – until now.

Marielena Hincapie, a distinguished immigration visiting scholar at Cornell Law School, said the idea that a president could be responsible for removing birthright citizenship is troubling because that authority may not belong there. Her comments suggest legal challenges are likely.

“What we do know is that the president does not have the executive authority to undo the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship at that level,” Hincapie said. “There are many, many questions that will arise and confusion and chaos will develop.”