President Trump on Thursday said he figures the Supreme Court will rule against him in his attempt to block illegal immigrants’ babies from getting automatic U.S. citizenship, calling the predicted outcome “a disgrace.”
He said blocking his executive order, which restricts children born here to both migrants and temporary legal visitors, would be “a disaster economically for our country.”
“You’ll have 25% of the people coming into our country coming in through birthright citizenship, and we won’t have any control. This decision by the Supreme Court is a very big one. They’ll probably rule against me because they seem to like doing that,” the president said.
The justices heard oral argument on the case last month.
Mr. Trump has lost heavily in lower courts, with judges across the ideological spectrum saying the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil. The high court also seemed to tilt that way, suggesting that even a 1940 law written by Congress appears to grant automatic citizenship.
Mr. Trump argues that the 14th Amendment applies only to those “under the jurisdiction” of the U.S., and that doesn’t include illegal immigrants or those on temporary visas.
The president said Thursday that the amendment, crafted and ratified after the Civil War, was “about the babies of slaves” and never envisioned “Chinese billionaires” coming to the U.S. to give birth.
He said the U.S. is “a laughingstock” for its generous policy.
Most of America’s major industrialized peer nations limit automatic citizenship more than the U.S. does.
Chinese parents are particular practitioners of “birth tourism,” which is when a woman comes to the U.S. specifically with the intention to deliver and claim citizenship for a child.
Mr. Trump declined, in response to a question from The Washington Times, to say whether he raised the matter with Chinese President Xi Jinping in their meeting last week, turning instead to the social costs of the more permissive policy.
“It’s going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and it’s in their hands,” he said, referring to the justices. “What can I tell you? It’s a commonsense ruling.”
