President-elect Donald Trump revealed in an interview over the weekend he is looking at options to end birthright citizenship in the U.S., a right that is protected in the U.S. Constitution under the 14th Amendment, falsely claiming that the U.S. is the only country that offers it. But the reality is that it is a common practice across Latin America.
The GOP leader sat down with NBC'S Kristen Welker on Sunday's "Meet the Press" for his first televised sit-down interview after he won the elections to discuss his plans for when he takes office again. There he doubled down on his long-time criticism of the practice, claiming that the U.S. is the only country that offers birthright citizenship.
"Did you know if somebody sets a foot— just a foot, one foot, you don't need two— on our land, congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America," Trump said.
"We have to end it. It's ridiculous," Trump said, adding, "Do you know we're the only country in the world that has it? Do you know that? There's not one other country."
The U.S. introduced birthright citizenship in 1869, in the wake of the Civil War, changing the Constitution to guarantee citizenship to all former slaves and to any child born on U.S. soil.
Birthright citizenship is protected under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside."
The current accepted interpretation is that a legal child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, no matter the parents' legal status. This type of citizenship does not change a parent's immigration status. Instead, U.S. law requires those children to wait until they're 21 to petition for their parents to become citizens, with very few exceptions.
While it is true that not every country offers birthright citizenship or has some restrictions around it, particularly a number of U.S. allies in Europe are in that list, 32 other countries— and two territories— join the U.S. in having unrestricted birthright citizenship.
Most notably, nearly all countries with unrestricted citizenship are in North and South America.
In North America, the U.S. and both of its neighbors— Canada and Mexico— have unrestricted birthright citizenship, as do all seven Central American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama and Belize.
Unrestricted birthright citizenship also exists in 10 of the 13 countries in the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda; Barbados; Cuba; Dominica; Grenada; Jamaica; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; and Trinidad and Tobago. Neither The Bahamas nor Haiti has a birthright citizenship policy, and the Dominican Republic has "mildly restricted" birthright citizenship, according to The Hill.
In South America, 10 of the 12 countries have unrestricted birthright citizenship: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Suriname lacks a birthright citizenship policy, and Colombia has a restricted policy.
It remains unclear if Trump will be able to get away with ending birthright citizenship, as it is extremely difficult to amend the constitution, particularly in a highly polarized environment as today's.
Because birthright citizenship is protected in the Constitution, two-thirds of both the House and Senate would need to support a change. And while Republicans do control both chambers of Congress, they do not hold anywhere near a supermajority to ratify the amendment. At the same time, 38 states need to ratify the change, another great obstacle in today's political environment.
The Trump administration, if it decides to move forward with their plan, is expected to make policies that intentionally lead to lawsuits to eventually get the issue before a conservative Supreme Court that has shown time and time again to be in Trump's camp, according to The Washington Post.
