Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has just announced he will introduce a bill that allegedly would end “birthright citizenship,” as it’s called, which allows children of undocumented immigrants, along with anyone else, born in the U.S. to automatically be a U.S. citizen.
Tuesday morning news broke that President Donald Trump has decided (incorrectly) he can change the U.S. Constitution and effectively line-item veto away the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born on American soil.
He cannot.
Most constitutional scholars, along with the U.S. Supreme Court – twice – have declared the 14th Amendment, and birthright citizenship, settled law.
President Trump lied in an interview with Axios, claiming America is the only country in the world that grants citizenship to anyone born in the country. Thirty countries, at least, including Canada and Mexico, grant citizenship to those born within its boundaries.
(The U.S. exempts foreign diplomats from being granted citizenship automatically.)
Late Tuesday morning Senator Graham tweeted, “Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship.”
He added:
That’s false, and unfair to those nations he claims are undeveloped.
On social media, some questioned why Senator Graham is so fixated on the 14th Amendment being in line with other countries, and not, for example, the Second Amendment, or U.S. policy on healthcare. Other just expressed outrage, and some just flat-out called him a racist.
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license