FOR INSIDERS | GOP lawmakers eye legislation challenging birthright citizenship ruling

Republican lawmakers are game planning legislative ways to try to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling this week that upheld birthright citizenship as a constitutional right.

Several GOP members have filed or are planning legislation to try to clamp down on birthright citizenship, such as by targeting “birth tourism” or defining which individuals are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, as written in the 14th Amendment. 

They are eyeing using Congress’s power of the purse to deny funding to agencies or jurisdictions who recognize such individuals as citizens. And the ruling is fueling demands among hard-line conservatives to codify more of President Trump’s border policies to restrict migration.

The plans signal a shift to a long-term strategy for immigration restrictionists. Any legislative effort would be a long shot in Congress, but if it did pass, it could provide the opportunity to challenge or chip away at the court ruling.

“I don’t believe we’re beholden to having to amend the Constitution any more than we are in other respects, when we’ve got the power to define a lot of things,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the day the ruling came out.

The Supreme Court decision dismayed and enraged many conservatives who had hoped that if the court did strike down Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship, it would stipulate that statutes that could be more easily altered by Congress. 

Instead, the majority opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts said that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship for nearly every person born on U.S. soil, regardless of whether their parents were in the country illegally.

That decision would suggest that it would take the high bar of a constitutional amendment to change birthright citizenship — requiring either a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate plus ratification by three-fourths of........

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