States that may be hit hardest by Trump’s birthright citizenship crackdown
President Donald Trump has issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants, and Newsweek has mapped the states that may be affected the most.
Newsweek contacted the Trump-Vance transition team for comment via email.
Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order
On Monday, Trump began his second term as president by signing a flurry of executive orders, including one that seeks to limit the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.
According to the 14th Amendment, which was adopted in 1868, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump and his supporters argue that birthright citizenship is a magnet for illegal immigration. Under the president’s executive order, government agencies will no longer issue citizenship documentation to babies born in the U.S. unless at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
On Tuesday, attorneys general from at least 18 states filed a lawsuit to contest the order in a Massachusetts federal court. The American Civil Liberties Union has also separately sued the Trump administration over the executive order.
The order is scheduled to go into effect 30 days after its signing, on February 19.
AP
What States Will Be Hit Hardest?
If the order goes into effect, California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois will likely be affected the most. According to the Pew Research Center, these states “have consistently had the most unauthorized immigrants since at least 1980.”
The think tank, citing the 2022 American Community Survey, estimates that the unauthorized population figures for those states are as follows:
- California — 1.8 million
- Texas — 1.6 million
- Florida — 1.2 million
- New York — 650,000
- New Jersey — 475,000
- Illinois — 400,000
Newsweek has contacted the governors of these states for comment via email and online form.
What Effect Will This Have?
In 2019, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported: “Immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy in many ways. They work at high rates and make up more than a third of the workforce in some industries.”
“Their geographic mobility helps local economies respond to worker shortages, smoothing out bumps that could otherwise weaken the economy,” the center’s researchers added.
Immigrants also help to mitigate one of the greatest long-term issues facing the United States: the depopulation of younger, working-age people, which is happening alongside an aging population. Newsweek has covered this population crisis here.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also said, “Children born to immigrant families are upwardly mobile, promising future benefits not only to their families, but to the U.S. economy overall.”
The center and other experts have warned that Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, which includes the executive order to limit birthright citizenship, could have costly effects to the U.S.’s economy.
