Trump Signs Executive Orders Restricting Birthright Citizenship, Targets 'Birth Tourism'

US President Donald Trump dismissed a previous Supreme Court decision on citizenship as "very unfortunate" while signing two new executive orders restricting birthright citizenship on Thursday. "It was close, but a very, very unfortunate decision," Trump said of the 6-3 vote top court ruling two months ago. The ruling rebuked Trump's previous attempt to challenge the constitutional provision that allows individuals born on US soil automatic citizenship. Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The rule guarantees citizenship for babies born in the US with only narrow exceptions, such as the children of foreign diplomats or members of an enemy occupying force. "This was done for a different reason. This was done right after the Civil War. This was for the babies of slaves, and what's happening now?" Trump said on Thursday. What are the new executive orders? Trump's close advisor and the architect of his immigration policy, Stephen Miller, said one of the orders signed Thursday seeks to deny birthright citizenship to children of members of "foreign terrorist organizations" as well as "large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments." Miller added that the order "ensures that large numbers of people who wrongly (would) be getting birthright citizenship will no longer be eligible for those benefits." The second executive order targets what Trump called "birth tourism." The expression refers to visitors securing visas and traveling to the US so they would give birth while in the country, so their children are entitled to US citizenship. "That practice of birth tourism is, as of the signing of this order, hereby banned. What that means is that no one in the world is anymore allowed to obtain a visa for this fraudulent purpose," Miller added. Currently, there are no official figures depicting the number of foreigners who come to the US for the explicit purpose of giving birth to obtain citizenship. But the Trump-aligned Center for Immigration Studies claims that between 20,000-25,000 mothers did so 2016-2017. Trump: 'Our country suffers' The White House has argued that the new executive orders do not fall within the limits of the Supreme Court ruling. Still, the orders are expected to be challenged in court. "I thought we were going to win it at the Supreme Court," Trump said on Thursday. "Unfortunately, we had a bad decision, very unfair decision. Our country suffers because of it and we’re ending it a different way," Trump said. Currently, no US law bans so-called birth tourism, but a federal regulation implemented in 2020 during Trump’s first term prohibits using temporary tourist and business visas for the primary purpose of obtaining US citizenship for a newborn. Edited by: Darko Janjevic