The administration of US President Donald Trump has prepared a new internal regulation, according to which, when obtaining a passport for a child born in the country, parents will need to provide the authorities with their passport or documents confirming legal immigration status, Reuters reports.
Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court refused to uphold the president's executive order, which effectively prohibited infants in the country from being granted jus soli citizenship if neither of their parents is an American citizen. The judges, despite Trump's outrage, overturned the order and ruled it unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship by right of soil.
Judging by information from Reuters, which managed to get acquainted with the new internal rules of the State Department, federal authorities will now at least try to strengthen control over the issuance of passports to children.
Previously, parents were required to provide proof of kinship and a photo ID to obtain documents, but now they want to add a passport or immigration documents to this list. The application will then be reviewed by department staff. The regulation is still at the approval stage and has not entered into force.
The plan could be a follow-up to Trump's Aug. 6 executive order, in which he narrowed grounds for denial of U.S. citizenship based on just cause to parents' foreign government employment and “hostile alien” status. Trump has previously referred to the Hostile Alien Act of 1798 when tightening immigration policy.
The decree also mentions that citizenship will be denied to children whose parents were involved in “commercial activities to gain access to birthright citizenship” or in fraud for this purpose. We are probably talking about maternity tourism – the practice when foreign women enter the United States for the purpose of giving birth and obtaining American citizenship for their child.
Trump previously said that the United States is the only country “stupid enough” to grant citizenship to all children born on its territory. There are, however, dozens of countries in the world with similar legislation.
As Reuters notes, Trump's August 6 decree may also be blocked by the US judiciary. Federal Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland last week declined to immediately issue a restraining order but allowed plaintiffs suing over the previous version of the executive order to update their complaint.
