President Donald Trump must regain public confidence in immigration; The Supreme Court’s decision to rule on the president’s executive order ending birthright law will allow him to do so.
Win or lose, the White House can use the court’s decision to reinvigorate the immigration debate and propose common-sense improvements to our country’s broken system. Changes that should include no longer counting undocumented immigrants in the census, ending the diversity lottery, and starting a merit-based admissions program.
President Trump was elected in part to end the immigration crisis created by his predecessor, President Joe Biden. The nation was shocked that Biden allowed millions of migrants into the country illegally. Voters were disgusted by the chaos at the border; in December 2023 alone, some 300,000 people entered the United States illegally, largely undetected due to their criminal history or health problems. It was a national shame.
TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDER ON BIRTH RIGHT CITIZENSHIP BLOCKED BY ANOTHER FEDERAL APPEAL JUDGE IN LAST RULING
Trump has quickly secured the border as promised, but his aggressive deportation policies are unpopular and his approval rating on immigration has turned deeply red.
He must overhaul his immigration approach, which could prove crucial to maintaining the historic gains he and other Republican candidates made with Hispanic voters last year. Latinos who followed the rules to enter our country resisted illegal immigration; they don’t like their neighborhoods being threatened by Venezuelan gangs, or their communities’ hospitals and schools being overrun by undocumented migrants. But they also don’t like seeing their old neighbors arrested by ICE agents just for being in the country illegally.
Birthright citizenship is a good reminder of how bad our immigration rules are. The approach guarantees that anyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen, regardless of the immigration status of their biological parents. The rule faces opposition from those who see it as an incentive to illegal immigration, which it certainly is.
Moreover, it produces ‘birthright tourism’; people from all over the world take advantage of this generous arrangement, which is rare among developed countries, and travel from China, Mexico and elsewhere to the United States to give birth, knowing that an American passport is worth its weight in gold.
Those who support the tradition argue that it was established under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, enacted in 1868, which provides that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens of the United States.” The White House insists the rule was never intended to include people in the country illegally, but was instead passed to override the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which barred Black Americans from becoming citizens. They also argue that undocumented people living in the shadows are not “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”
Democrats universally support birthright citizenship. They actually favor any program that increases illegal immigration, which puts them at odds with the majority of the country.
Gallup polls showed that last year, 55% of Americans believed immigration should be reduced, and nearly half the country supported “deporting all immigrants living in the United States illegally…”. Since then, as Democrats and their media allies have worked overtime to demonize ICE agents who round up drug and sex traffickers, and some who are simply in the country illegally, people’s attitudes have softened.
Most Americans want our immigration laws to benefit our country, and a majority approved of the bipartisan immigration program that President Trump rolled out during his first term. The plan included increased border security, but also created a merit-based immigration system that would prioritize people who bring needed capabilities to the US.
As President Trump said in 2018, “some 70 percent of immigrants coming to the United States today are admitted based on family connections or through a random visa lottery – a system that favors random opportunity over the skills our economy needs.” He proposed a points-based system, like the one used in Canada, that would “increase the number of legal immigrants selected based on skills or merit from 12 percent to 57 percent.”
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Trump’s proposal received broad bipartisan support. According to a 2018 national poll conducted by Harvard University, a merit-based immigration plan was supported by 84 percent of registered voters, including 75 percent of registered Democrats, and found support across racial and ethnic lines.
Democrats oppose common sense immigration reform and confuse legal and illegal immigration. They are confident that a large majority of those who enter the country illegally will eventually be able to vote and support their party.
Even now, illegal immigration is a boon for Democrats in charge of blue states like California and New York, whose reckless spending and resulting high taxes are pushing residents to move to more affordable states like Florida and Texas. Mass emigration should lead to less federal aid and fewer seats in Congress and fewer votes in the Electoral College. However, because the government includes undocumented immigrants in the decennial census, Democrats pay zero fines for bad policy. This must come to an end.
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The treatment of undocumented immigrants who have lived honorably in the U.S. for decades and contributed to their communities must also change. Large-scale deportations are not the solution. Such people should be given the opportunity to apply for alien residency status, but understand that, as punishment for entering illegally, they will never become citizens.
Our immigration system does not put America first; President Trump has a chance to fix this. He is right about the birthright; as the executive order states, “the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted as universally extending citizenship to all persons born in the United States.” That’s true; for example, the children of foreign diplomats do not become citizens even if they were born on American soil. It is encouraging that the court will consider this issue, but even if President Trump’s executive order is rescinded, there is still much more work to be done.
