Several of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, have supported his call to end automatic citizenship for the American-born children of undocumented immigrants. This is worth keeping in mind the next time Republicans accuse the Obama administration of trying to make the United States more like Europe.
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What particularly worries about Mr. Trump’s continued front-runner status is that the Republican rank and file overwhelmingly think him best-equipped among the party’s presidential hopefuls to handle, variously, the economy, ISIS, social issues (such as abortion and same-sex marriage) and illegal immigration.
The 14th Amendment says all individuals born or naturalized in the United States are considered American citizens.
Even Bobby Jindal came out against it – only “for illegal immigrants”, but it’s still a pretty shocking position given that, as the son of legal immigrants, birthright citizenship is the only reason he is a U.S. citizen in the first place. “But many of them agree with me – you’re going to find they do not have American citizenship”, Trump said. Trump spoke about illegal immigration and other topics in front of an estimated crowd of 4,200.
Hillary Clinton could go one step further, and pick a Latino running mate, like HUD Secretary Julian Castro; he slammed Trump’s citizenship ideas. “I’m not going to get, you know, ‘O’Reilly this!’ You’re not going to do that, right?” Lindsey Graham said it might be a rare area of agreement between Trump and himself.
On Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” on Tuesday night, the GOP’s presidential frontrunner envisioned kicking all 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the country.
But others in the crowded GOP field are putting up a resistance to Trump’s proposals.
Trump polled 36 percent favorable to 59 percent unfavorable, figures which were very similar to those of Bush, the former Florida governor and the son and brother of two presidents.
Ending birthright citizenship would most likely require passing an amendment to change the Constitution.
Trump also proposed a temporary freeze on issuing new green cards, calling for “a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers”.
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Trump’s specifics have coincided with yet another jump in his polling numbers, effectively putting his counterparts on notice and forcing them to take positions on immigration reform. People who say things like that usually believe them.
