President Donald Trump issued two executive orders on Thursday intended to end birth tourism to the U.S. and narrow birthright citizenship.
The president signed the orders with his top aide, Stephen Miller, at his side at the White House in front of reporters.
‘What that means is that no one in the world is anymore allowed to obtain a visa for this fraudulent purpose.’
Miller explained that the first order would “expand the definitions of people who were ineligible for birthright citizenship” in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that kept the policy active.
Those who are newly excluded from birthright citizenship include “alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations, and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments.”
He went on to explain the second order.
“The second action that he’s taking, which is especially historic, is for the first time ever in American history to ban birth tourism,” Miller said.
“The idea that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor, saying they want to go to Disneyland, they want to go visit a monument or go to a national park,” he added.
“But the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen,” Miller said, “to leave our country, and then have a U.S. citizen child that gives them access under this broken system to welfare benefits, ultimately to the voting booth, and all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans.”
Miller touted all of the president’s actions to safeguard American citizenship and listed this order as one of the top three decisions.
“So that practice of birth tourism is, as of the signing of this order, hereby banned,” he continued. “And what that means is that no one in the world is anymore allowed to obtain a visa for this fraudulent purpose.”
Trump also criticized the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship.
“I thought we were going to win it at the Supreme Court,” he said. “Unfortunately we had a bad decision, very unfair decision. Our country suffers because of it. And we’re ending it a different way.”
RELATED: Texas AG Paxton sues Chinese ‘birth tourism’ center for allegedly orchestrating abuse of birthright citizenship
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council immediately criticized the orders.
“This new order is far less sweeping than the original, but like the first order, seemingly violates the Constitution,” he said on social media.
“As an initial matter, the new EO aims to deny citizenship to children born to two noncitizen parents where ONE parent (not both) falls within one of the EO’s new categories,” he added. “This alone may well be a violation of the 14th Amendment, which cares about the status of both parents.”
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