Immigration the Trump card for midterms

US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has strengthened his anti-immigration stance ahead of the midterm elections by declaring that he plans to end the right to citizenship for babies of noncitizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. People's Daily overseas edition comments:

Since he took office, Trump has constantly been tightening US immigration policies. This time he is targeting birthright citizenship.

The biggest obstacle to this will undoubtedly be the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which passed in 1868 grants all people born in the country US citizenship. It was in 1898 that an ethnic Chinese, who was born and grew up in California but was rejected entry when he traveled back from a trip to China, took the US government to court and won the case. Since then, all people born in the US have been granted US citizenship.

However, the US Supreme Court never explained whether the amendment should apply to illegal immigrants, and some US lawyers and scholars believe the answer is no. That's also what Trump claimed during his campaign for US presidency in 2015, calling for an end to birthright citizenship.

There is little hope of realizing his goal with a new constitutional amendment, because it is too difficult to pass one. In the past 200 years, more than 11,000 proposals to amend the US Constitution have been put forward but only 27 have been passed by the US Congress.

That's why Trump has said he will sign an administrative order to end birthright citizenship. That's his favorite means of getting what he wants. He had signed 85 administrative orders by Sept 20, second only to Jimmy Carter among all US presidents. But there is a risk that the US Supreme Court would declare the order unconstitutional.

"This is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms," the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted.

Trump has been keen to hype up the issue of immigration ahead of the elections knowing that he rode a rising tide of anti-immigration sentiment into the White House.