Trump Proposes Tearing Up the Constitution for a Campaign Stunt

President Donald Trump wants to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants with an executive order, he told Axios, a move that would fundamentally rewrite the 14th Amendment in order to carry out a campaign stunt.

He told Axios this in an interview for their new HBO show, which they gleefully promoted:

“It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment,” Trump told Axios. “Guess what, you don’t…you can definitely do it with an act of Congress, but now they’re saying I can do it with an executive order.”

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump continued. This is very wrong; there were 33 such countries as of 2015, per Politifact, a fact that Axios only got around to noting after it had already posted the interview. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

Such a move would likely violate over a century of Supreme Court precedent.

With a week out from election day, this is just the latest gimmick by the Trump administration to portray strength on immigration. Yesterday, the Pentagon announced that it would send over 5,000 troops to the southern border, and multiple reports have said that the administration is considering a plan to heavily restrict asylum seekers from entering the country.