(Adnkronos) – During the ongoing Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship, which Donald Trump, the first sitting president to take this step, is attending, the administration’s State attorney, John Suer, lashed out against what he called “birth tourism”, citizenship tourism, referring to foreigners who have their children born in the United States in order to grant them American citizenship.
To the question from Chief Justice John Roberts about how widespread this phenomenon is, indicated by the Trump administration as one of the reasons for the decree signed by Trump to suspend “birthright citizenship”, citizenship by right of birth, Sauer responded vaguely. “Nobody knows for sure,” he said, referring to the existence of tourist agencies in China that organize ad hoc trips.
“It’s a new world,” the Solicitor General then said, with Justice Roberts, a conservative appointed by George Bush, replying: “it’s a world, but it’s the same Constitution.” Words that seem to reveal the skepticism even of conservative members of the Court to accept the restrictive interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which since 1868 guarantees citizenship to “all persons” born in the United States, adopted by the executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office to deny it to the children of undocumented immigrants. An executive order against which the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups have filed the appeal now under discussion at the Supreme Court.
