Former president Donald Trump said Tuesday that if reelected he will ban birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.
"My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming, and encourage many of the aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries," Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary, said in a campaign video. He said he will ban the practice on his first day in office.
Trump said the "unfair practice" of "birth tourism" would end. "It’s a practice that’s so horrible and so egregious," he said.
Trump made the same promise when he was president in 2018. "We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits," Trump said in October 2018.
Former House speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) shot Trump's idea down at the time, saying he "obviously cannot do that."
"You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," Ryan said. "We didn’t like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives, we believe in the Constitution."
In 2019 Trump again said he was "seriously" considering ending the practice. "We’re looking at that very seriously, birthright citizenship," Trump told reporters.