Can Donald Trump end birthright citizenship in the US? 

President-elect Donald Trump said he plans to end birthright citizenship in the United States in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on a Meet the Press episode that aired on Sunday, reiterating a position he has articulated earlier too.

Were Trump to try to execute that plan once he takes office, it would involve undoing how the US has treated citizenship for more than 150 years.

But can Trump end birthright citizenship in the US, and what happens if he does?

What did Trump say?

When Welker asked Trump whether he still plans to end birthright citizenship on day one in office, Trump replied: “Yeah, absolutely.”

Birthright citizenship essentially means that anyone born in the US automatically becomes a US citizen, which includes children of undocumented immigrants or tourists and students on short-term visas.

He said he was willing to work with Democrats to keep “Dreamers”, who are undocumented people who arrived in the US as children and have lived in the country most of their lives.

However, Trump also said: “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.” That would mean expelling legal US citizens — ostensibly so that their families are not separated.

What does the 14th Amendment say?

The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution is the bedrock of the country’s approach to citizenship. It guarantees birthright citizenship. The amendment was ratified in 1868.

The first section of the amendment says: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

This is regardless of “their parent’s immigration or citizenship status,” according to the website of the American Immigration Council, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit and advocacy group.

Can Trump end birthright citizenship?

Welker brought up the 14th Amendment during her conversation with Trump, asking him whether he can get around the law.

“Well we’re going to have to get a change,” Trump responded.

“But we have to end it.”

Trump said if he can, he will change it through executive action, among other options which he did not specify.

Trump has been talking about wanting to end birthright citizenship since his first term in office. In a 2018 interview with Axios, he said: “You can definitely do it with an act of Congress … but now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”

For years, legal experts and politicians, including some from the Republican Party, have cast doubt on Trump’s claims.

“You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,” former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a radio interview in 2018. “I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process.”

Amending the US Constitution is a difficult process. It requires two-thirds of the vote in both the House and the Senate. The amendment then needs to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. In the Senate, Democrats hold 47 seats and the Republicans hold 53. In the House, Democrats hold 215 seats, while Republicans hold 220.

What implications could this have?

A 2011 factsheet by the American Immigration Council says eliminating birthright citizenship will affect everyone. All American parents would have to go through an arduous and expensive process of proving their children’s citizenship.

“Our birth certificates are proof of our citizenship. If birthright citizenship were eliminated, US citizens could no longer use their birth certificates as proof of citizenship,” the factsheet says.

Research by Washington, DC-based nonpartisan think tank Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University projected that ending birthright citizenship for US children with two unauthorised immigrant parents would increase the existing “unauthorised population” by 4.7 million people by 2050. The findings of this research were published in 2010.

Do other countries have birthright citizenship?

While Trump claimed in the NBC interview that the US is “the only country that has” birthright citizenship, more than 30 other countries follow this approach.

Those are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chad, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uruguay and Venezuela.

What are other kinds of citizenship?

Many countries have more than one way in which they grant citizenship. Besides birthright citizenship, other kinds of citizenship that countries have include:

Citizenship by descent: This is when one or both parents need to be citizens of a country for the child to be considered a citizen. Most countries offer citizenship by descent. Being born within the territory of the country is not a requirement to obtain citizenship by descent. Some countries have specific criteria for granting citizenship by descent. For example, in Bahrain and Iran, the father has to be a citizen for the child to be considered a citizen.

Citizenship through naturalisation: This is when a foreign-born resident of a country can obtain citizenship after spending a certain period there and fulfilling a set of criteria that usually involve, in effect, proving that they have assimilated into that culture. Different countries have different criteria for naturalisation. The US offers this type of citizenship too.

Citizenship through marriage: A foreign-born person can obtain citizenship of a country if they are married to a citizen of that country. In the US, people can apply for citizenship through marriage three years after marriage to a US citizen, and after obtaining a permanent residence permit, or green card. Regular residents have to wait until five years after obtaining the green card to apply for citizenship. The United Kingdom and Germany are among other countries that offer citizenship by marriage.

Dual citizenship: This is when a person can hold citizenship in two countries. At least 87 countries allow dual citizenship with the US, according to World Population Review.

Citizenship by investment: Some countries allow foreign-born residents to obtain citizenship by making an investment in the country, such as by buying property. In Turkiye, foreign nationals must buy property worth at least $400,000 to acquire citizenship. The US does not have this option. Citizenship can also be acquired by investment in other countries, including Malta, as well as Antigua and Barbuda.