DeSantis says birthright citizenship ‘kind of cheapens the process when you make it a tourist thing’

As the nation’s highest court weighs whether to greenlight Trump’s citizenship ban for certain U.S.-born babies, Gov. Ron DeSantis argued Wednesday that traveling to America to give birth “cheapens” the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.

“I don’t think [Reconstruction-era lawmakers] intended someone to just come here on a visit who’s foreign, have a kid, then go back, and then that kid becomes an American citizen,” DeSantis said during a press conference in The Villages. “That kind of cheapens the process when you make it a tourist thing.”

He referenced a new Pew Research study finding that 9% of U.S. births in 2023 were to mothers either illegally in the country or with temporary legal status.

“Is that something that we think is good for this country? I just don’t think that’s anyway that you run a successful republican system of government,” DeSantis said.

His comments coincided with U.S. Supreme Court arguments over whether President Donald Trump’s executive order revamping birthright citizenship guarantees is lawful.

Signed on his second day in office — and immediately blocked by the courts — the order would limit birthright citizenship to babies born to at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident.

Under this order, babies would not have U.S. citizenship if their parents are illegally in the country or only have temporary legal status.

This would be a massive upheaval for the 14th Amendment, which houses the clause that guarantees citizenship to those born in the United States.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the clause reads. It doesn’t apply to children of ambassadors or hostile invaders.

‘Quirky’ argument?

The Trump administration’s argument hinges on points ranging from the “jurisdiction thereof” provision, the clause’s carve out, and the origins of the amendment.

They argue that those illegally in the nation, or without permanent status, do not owe complete allegiance to the United States. To be subject to U.S. jurisdiction, parents must have a permanent home in the country, they say.

But Supreme Court justices on Wednesday expressed skepticism about some of these arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts said that expanding the carve out to children of undocumented immigrants struck him as “quirky,” CNN reported.

“Then you expand it to the whole class of illegal aliens who are here in the country,” Roberts said. “I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples.”

The administration — along with DeSantis — also argues that the authors of birthright citizenship didn’t intend them to apply to modern immigration practices.

“The purpose was to clarify that Dred Scott should have won that case, and that he, as well as all the former slaves, were citizens of the United States,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “But then that has now been applied in ways that the framers of that provision would have never contemplated.

“Coming to America was a big in deal in 1865, 1866. You couldn’t just hop on a plane and get here, stay three weeks, and hop on a plane and go back to foreign countries. That wasn’t the way it worked,” he continued. “And so they weren’t thinking in terms of people flooding in in violation of the law.”

He added that it although the court may not rule in favor of the administration, DeSantis hopes “we’ll get some analysis because they really haven’t ever addressed this specific question.”

This article appears in Mar. 26 – Apr. 1.