6 President Elect Trump has said he wanted to void birthright citizenship as a means to curb illegal immigration to the USA. The 14th amendment of the Constitution guarantees that "all people born in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the US and of their state of residence" The prevailing legal consensus is that birthright citizenship can only be ended via a constitutional amendment, not executive action/ executive order. Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in the below trifecta of cases that essentially removed or severely limited the ability of Congress to remove citizenship from anyone. Don't consider precedent from Wong Kim Ark ruling. Trop v. Dulles (1958) - Congress lacks authority to strip citizenship as a means of criminal punishment Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) - Congress may not strip citizenship from someone involuntarily Vance v. Terrazas (1980) - Complement to Afroyim ruling that citizenship can only be relinquished upon showing of purposeful intent. To what degree do these 3 precedents constrain what Trump can do to annul birthright citizenship united-statescitizenshippresidentcongressexecutive Share Improve this question Follow asked 23 hours ago AnthonyAnthony 48533 silver badges1010 bronze badges 4 4 The last I heard, which was a couple of weeks ago, the plan was to change the interpretation of the 14th amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act only with respect to future births, not to attempt to apply this interpretation to anyone born beforehand. Has this changed recently? (If not then these cases are probably not among the most relevant.) – phoog Commented 22 hours ago Such would be ex post facto and hence unconstitutional , no? – Anthony Commented 22 hours ago 2 As the answer explains, if the courts agree that the interpretation was wrong all along then it's not an ex-post-facto law and not necessarily unconstitutional. It would be manifestly unjust, of course, so it's not likely to happen, but it isn't strictly speaking prohibited by the constitution. – phoog Commented 21 hours ago 1 @phoog Why assume that manifestly unjust things are unlikely to happen in today's world? – Criticize SE actions means ban Commented 11 hours ago Add a comment  |