Democratic states this week made clear that Donald Trump faces a bitter legal fight if he pushes ahead with plans to end birthright citizenship, but an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com shows that the president has America’s backing.
After his inauguration on Monday, Trump, ordered officials not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. if neither their mother or father is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.
J.L. Partners polled 1,009 registered voters ahead of Trump’s inauguration asked them: ‘Currently, when someone is born in the United States they immediately become a citizen, regardless of their country of origin or their parents’ citizenship status. This is called ‘birthright citizenship’.
‘Do you support or oppose the removal of birthright citizenship?’
Some 48 percent of respondents said they supported removal and 26 percent said they supported it strongly.
In contrast, 32 percent said they opposed it, 23 percent strongly.
Trump has raised the idea of ending birthright citizenship since 2018.
But past polls have tended to suggest Americans backed the idea of allowing babies born on U.S. soil to have U.S.
The new poll is one of several that appears to show public opinion moving in Trump’s direction, after years of headlines about an immigration and border crisis.
J.L. Partners co-founder James Johnson said he was surprised by the finding, which ran counter to other polls on the issue.
‘What is really driving that is the wording. If you just poll the idea of birthright citizenship, voters nod it through,’ he said. ‘They like the idea and the ideal.
‘But when an explanation is included and how this could apply to the children of newly arrived illegal migrants, as our wording is, support drops off.
‘Our focus groups from the campaign showed people worried about the potential of chain migration and the principle of fairness. I suspect this poll finding—a common sense aversion to the idea taken to its extreme—is closer to the reality.’
Trump said he was looking ‘very seriously’ at ending the right during his first presidency, but the idea went nowhere. He raised the issue again in 2023 on the campaign trail.
He signed the executive order eight hours into his presidency, saying: ‘That’s the big one.
‘People have wanted to do this for decades.’
Research suggests that the number of babies born to parents without the legal right to remain in the U.S. is falling.
The most recent numbers come from 2022 when Pew Research estimated that 1.3 million adults were children born to unauthorized immigrants.
Whatever happens, Trump will have a fight on his hands.
His supporters say the right is magnet for immigrants looking for a loophole.
On the other hand, legal experts have previously suggested the question is ‘settled law,’ based on a constitutional right, and beyond the power of the president to change.
The 14th Amendment states clearly that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” have automatic citizenship.
Some 22 states as well as immigrants rights group and a mother-to-be launched immediate legal challenges to Trump’s plan.
‘The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period,’ said New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union said he would not let an attack on unborn babies and future generations go unchallenged.
‘Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is,’ he said.
‘This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans.’
