‘It’s ridiculous and it has to end’: Trump threatens to scrap automatic citizenship for children of foreigners born in US
- In interview for HBO series, president decries non-citizens giving birth to babies who sponge off the state ‘for 85 years with all of those benefits’
The right to US citizenship for children born on American soil to foreign parents could end under US President Donald Trump, who threatened to sign an executive order scrapping the rule in a television interview recorded on Monday.
Ditching the policy, which is said to be protected by the Constitution, would be the boldest move yet by a US president pledging to take a hard line on immigration.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and 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 part of an interview with Axios released on Tuesday that is expected to air in full on HBO this weekend. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous and it has to end.”
Trump, trying to energise his supporters before next week’s midterm elections in which Republicans could lose control of Congress, has also stoked anxiety about a caravan of Central American migrants making its way to the US.
His administration announced on Monday it would send about 5,200 troops to the southern border with Mexico by the end of the week to head off the caravan.
