Should Birthright Citizenship come to an end?

NBC's Rory O'Neill reports the Trump Administration wants to end it, but it would mean changing the 14th Amendment

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we jump over at six forty five to the
Legacy Retirement Group dot Com phone line and check in
with NBC News Radios Rory on Neil Rory, How is
the weekend?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
A very good, little too short, nice, cloudy, rainy, cool.
It was good napping weather.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Ooh yeah, we've been so cold here. It got to
forty yesterday. It was like everybody was outside, you know,
running or walking dogs or out with the kids. It
felt like it might as well have been eighty degrees here.
So it was kind of good to get out and
get the last Christmas lights up and everything. So, hey,
I wanted to check in with you on the citizenship
and birthright that could be finding its way to the

(00:37):
United States Supreme Court. And this is really a this
is a Fourteenth Amendment issue.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Right it is, So let's set the table here. Back
on Inauguration Day in January, President Trump signed an executive
order that essentially ends this idea of birthright citizenship, meaning
you're born in the US, you are an American citizen.
That really has been part of the Constitution since the Amendment,
which was passed after the Civil War, a series of

(01:03):
amendments all about trying to address issues including slavery and citizenship.
And now the President says that should come to an end,
that too many people are flying in, too many women
who are eight and a half weeks months prightnant flying
into the US to have babies, and then that child
instantly becomes an American citizen with all of the privileges
that go along with it. So the President wants to

(01:24):
end that policy. The Supreme Court will hear a challenge
to his executive order in January.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
And how do we think that the court is going
to take that up? I mean, the Court is a
conservative leaning, but I think it's going to be once
you start talking about changing amendments, that gets a little trickier.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
It does. And you know, are you a strict constitutionalist, right,
are you there and just go by the text and
that's what it says there in the fourteenth Amendment or
are you trying to interpret part of this text more
in the Constitution. So that's really what's going to be
the issue. Obviously, a conservative court, to the members or
a lot of three of the members have been appointed

(02:03):
by President Trump. It's got the mega majority for the conservatives.
But you know, typically conservatives like to stick to the Constitution,
and there it is right there in the fourteenth Amendment.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, and then but and then on the other side
of that coin, the you know, it's sort of a
letter of the law spirit of the law. As you
point out, if you've got a woman coming into this
country illegally eight and a half months pregnant just to
have a baby, that's not necessarily what the fourteenth Amendment
was intended to cover. I mean, you've got somebody who's
sort of taking advantage of the situation.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well, right, then the court argument should be, well, then
if you don't like it, pass amendments of the Constitution.
But that's what the Constitution says because it was amended
that way. So if you want to change it, well,
there's an amending process that we all know about, So
then amend the amendment. But you know you can't do
it through executive order. Could be the interpretation by the

(02:56):
court here,