New Delhi: US President-elect Donald Trump has revealed the agenda he wants to pursue after taking the oath as President, and it has led to a storm in a teacup. He has said that he plans to end the ‘Birthright Citizenship’ in the US, which is in the 14th Amendment of the country’s Constitution.
It will take away the rights of those who are born to parents without valid documents in the US. Also, Trump has said that he aims to deport all illegal immigrants and would work with the Democrats to protect the ‘Dreamers’. The ‘Dreamers’ are undocumented immigrants who entered the US in childhood illegally.
What is birthright citizenship in the US?
According to the American Immigration Council, birthright citizenship is a legal principle under which anyone born on US soil will get automatic citizenship irrespective of the status of the parents (legal or illegal). It is also known as ‘jus soli’, a Latin phrase that means ‘right of the soil’. The US is one of the 34 countries that recognise this.
The right is there in the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution which in 1868 underwent a ratification. The Fourteenth Amendment was enacted after the end of the Civil War ended and it rectified the 1857 Dred Scott decision which ruled that the US Constitution did not give citizenship to people of African descent. The rights of the African-Americans were guaranteed after it was adopted. The Fourteenth Amendment states, “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 in which they reside.”
After the Civil War, the law gave citizenship to freed slaves. In the landmark 1898 Supreme Court case Wong Kim Ark v. United States, its scope was upheld where Wong, the child of Chinese immigrants, successfully argued since she was born in the US, she was eligible for citizenship irrespective of the immigration status of her parents. Over 30 countries give Birth Right Citizenship including Canada, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Fiji, Venezuela and Cuba. However, there are many countries where both the parents of the child should be from that country for citizenship.
According to the American Immigration Council, birthright citizenship is a legal principal under which anyone born on the US soil will get automatic citizenship irrespective of the status of the parents (legal or illegal). knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
