Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.

On Thursday evening, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on birthright citizenship, just over a month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a previous order he made on the issue was unconstitutional.

The new orders are narrower than that previous one, which was signed in the first week of his second term in office. Several legal experts have already opined that the new orders also likely violate the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause, which grants citizenship rights to nearly every child born in the U.S., similar to how most nations in the Western Hemisphere operate.

“We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright, it was close,” Trump complained to reporters on Thursday regarding the high court’s decision against his first order. “So we’re making adjustments.”

The first order, titled “Ending Birth Tourism,” focuses on Trump’s claim that “birth tourism operators use deceptive advertisements and inducements to entice foreign nationals to travel to the United States for the purpose of giving birth on American soil.”

It is the “policy of the United States to promote the integrity of its immigration system, to ensure that nonimmigrant visa classifications are used only for their lawful and intended purposes, and to prevent the exploitation of those classifications by persons engaging in birth tourism,” the order reads, adding:

Johnson, Trump, Still “Looking at All Angles” to End Birthright Citizenship

Pursuant to section 301 of title 3, United States Code, the authority granted to the President under section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1185(a), is hereby delegated to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to the extent necessary to implement this order.

Pursuant to section 301 of title 3, United States Code, the authority granted to the President under section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1185(a), is hereby delegated to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to the extent necessary to implement this order.

That chapter of U.S. code makes no mention of “birth tourism” or any similar term.........

© Truthout