00:01The Constitution says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to
00:06the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. And the Supreme Court has held
00:11that that means that almost everybody born in the United States is a citizen, the exceptions being
00:18children of accredited foreign diplomats and children of enemy troops in hostile occupation
00:24of U.S. territory, which has not been a problem for quite some time. There is another category of
00:31people who are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and that is Indians born
00:37on reservations in so-called tribal relations. But in 1924 Congress passed a statute giving such
00:45persons citizenship. So really there was a very limited category of people who were not citizens.
00:55Children of diplomats and children of enemy troops.
00:58Well, Donald Trump has signed two executive orders now to crack down on who is eligible
01:04for birthright citizenship. What did they outline?
01:08Well, the first executive order, which he signed on January 20th, 2025, denied birthright citizenship
01:15to children of undocumented migrants and children of certain nonimmigrant, noncitizens who had legal status,
01:28but it was a temporary status, like student visa holders or people on temporary work visas.
01:33And the Supreme Court in Trump versus Barbara in June said that that executive order was unconstitutional.
01:41And it said, again, that the only categories of people who were not citizens were children of enemy
01:48troops and children of foreign diplomats. In response to that, today he signed a new executive order,
01:55which says, all right, but I'm going to tell you
02:00more about who I think are enemy troops and who are foreign diplomats.
02:05And so today's executive order says that enemy aliens in general, not just enemy troops and hostile
02:12occupation, are not U.S. citizens, that their children are not U.S. citizens. And in particular,
02:20he identified children of foreign terrorists. So if somebody's parent is a foreign terrorist,
02:28and they're born in the United States according to this executive order,
02:31they're not going to be treated as a citizen. And the other category is, in addition to accredited
02:38diplomats, employees of international organizations, employees of foreign embassies and consulates,
02:47if they are not citizens, then their children are not going to enjoy birthright citizenship,
02:53according to this executive order. The executive order also
02:57also restricts citizenship to people born in U.S. territories, like Puerto Rico, which is not a
03:05state, but it's a territory of the United States. And such persons born there have citizenship by statute,
03:12by law, but not necessarily by the Constitution. And the executive order says that those people are only
03:22going to have citizenship to the extent that a statute provides.
03:28So is it clear how these new executive orders could be enforced?
03:36It is not clear. There's likely to be constitutional challenges to them based on the Trump versus
03:43Barber decision in June. It's likely that they will be held unconstitutional.
03:52Another thing that the birthright citizenship order today did is that it said children of people who
03:58come here for purposes of birth tourism are not going to be citizens. And a separate executive order was
04:05signed today, which expanded enforcement and exclusion policy for people coming here for the purpose of
04:13of so-called birth tourism, which is the alleged phenomenon that people from around the world are
04:21coming to the United States to take advantage of the birthright citizenship policy, have their kids in
04:26the United States so that their children will be U.S. citizens. And there is an immigration restriction
04:34on people who are coming to the United States primarily for the purpose of getting citizenship for
04:39their children. That's not permitted. And enforcement against that is going to be enhanced in various
04:47ways through the law enforcement apparatus that exists to enforce the immigration laws.
04:54So, I mean, Donald Trump has been making claims that people are building businesses around this birth
04:59tourism approach. Is there some validity here?
05:05Well, I think there are a few small businesses that do that. Specialized travel agencies,
05:12you might call them. For the most part, people who do this are people of means, because you can't just
05:21fly to the United States and get expensive health care and expensive accommodations unless you have
05:28money in your pocket. But all the research that I've seen says that it's an unusual phenomenon. There
05:35aren't a lot of people coming to do it, a few hundred, a few thousand a year, maybe 10,000.
05:43And we have
05:44millions of people born in this country every year. So it's really a drop in the bucket. And maybe it's
05:51something that should be discouraged, but it's not a social problem for this country. It's not something
05:58that is creating negative impacts that I am aware of.
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