WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he will scrap a constitutional guarantee to citizenship for anyone born on US soil in a headline-grabbing move bolstering his anti-immigration platform a week before midterm elections.
The surprise announcement in an interview with Axios, released in part on Tuesday, followed the dispatch of more than 5,000 regular troops to the Mexican border, itself a highly unusual move prompted by Trump´s warnings of a migrant "invasion." The birthright citizenship proposal was likely to prove even more controversial, given questions over whether a president can meddle with the constitution at all.
The right to US citizenship for all born in the country is enshrined in the 14th amendment. To change the constitution requires a two thirds majority in Congress -- something almost unthinkable in today´s deeply partisan, near evenly split legislature.
