President Trump has signed two executive orders aimed at narrowing birthright citizenship and cracking down on what officials call birth tourism. The move follows a Supreme Court decision that struck down his earlier, broader attempt at the same policy. BBC News headlined it "Trump again tries to limit US birthright citizenship with new executive orders". Fox News headlined it "Trump signs executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, birth tourism after Supreme Court setback".
Outlets framed the development differently. One headline described the action simply as another try at limiting the policy. BBC News headlined it "Trump again tries to limit US birthright citizenship with new executive orders". Another cast it as ending birth tourism outright. Breitbart headlined it "Trump Signs Orders That End Birth Tourism, Limit Birthright Citizenship".
At a signing event, Trump argued the current system has been exploited, saying it has been made into something of a joke. "“They’ve taken birthright citizenship and they’ve made a joke out of it,” Trump said during a signing event in the Oval Office on Thursday."1, The Daily Wire said. He also said adjustments were needed because people have built businesses around birthright citizenship, calling the practice unfair and describing it as buying their way in. ""We're making adjustments because it's very unfair," Trump said. "They're building businesses around birthright citizenship. That's not the way it was supposed to work. It's a disgrace. They're buying their way in, and we're not going to let it happen."", Fox News said.
Legal scholars quoted in coverage raised doubts about the orders. One law professor called the birth tourism provision a political stunt, noting the issue is already addressed by federal law. ""It's a political stunt to the extent that it is addressing the issue of so-called 'birth tourism' that's already covered by federal law," Lawrence Guttentag, a law professor at Stanford and Yale, told NBC."2, Reason said. Another legal scholar suggested that anyone seeking to actually rewrite the birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment would need to pursue a formal rewrite of the amendment itself, while stopping short of endorsing such a change. "“If you really want to rewrite the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, the best way is to rewrite” it, says Sandra Rierson, professor at Western State College of Law, though she doesn’t endorse the change."3, Christian Science Monitor said. A commentary further argued that the orders combine unconstitutional provisions with what it called performance art, predicting they will not accomplish much in practice. Reason wrote: "In reality, the orders will not do much at all, because they combine unconstitutional provisions with performance art."2
Estimates of how many births result annually from birth tourism vary widely across reporting. One estimate places the figure anywhere from the low thousands to the tens of thousands. Axios reported: "Estimates about the number of children who've been the result of birth tourism range from the low thousands to the tens of thousands."4 Another cites a narrower range, putting the number between twenty thousand and twenty six thousand babies born in the United States each year as a result of birth tourism, or roughly a fraction of a percent of total annual births. BBC News reported: "The MPI estimates, external that between 20,000 to 26,000 babies were born in the US annually as a result of birth tourism, which is about 0.5 to 0.7% of total annual births."5
