Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th US president of the United States of America. On the very first day, he made several decisions by executive orders including a major issue of Immigration.
What has happened so far
Trump has decided by the executive order that he wants to end and reverse the Birthright citizenship which can impact many NRIs and H1B visa holders and their families.
Birthright citizenship
According to this rule, Anyone who is born on American soil automatically becomes an American citizen irrespective of the status of their parent. The status of parents can be any of the following either an Illegal immigrant or a temporary Visa holder.
It is for now unclear whether he can change the orders unilaterally on his own or he will need a two-third voting congress to do so. As per the sources, he has instructed federal agencies not to issue paperwork or documentation to the children who are currently been born in the 30 days to the parents who are on h1b visas or illegal immigrants.
What he ordered
According to his executive order, He imposed the criteria of providing these citizenship rights to the parents among which must have at least one of the parents to be an American citizen or at least a legal permanent resident or a green card holder or member of the USA military. According to some reports, the baby who is already born and given citizenship cannot be revoked.
As per the comparison only USA and Canada are the only developed countries that still have the birthright citizenship plan other countries like UK, Ireland have ancestry-based citizenship. According to Pew Research, In 2016 there were 2 lakh babies born in USA whose parents were unauthorized immigrants now in 2022 that number has gone up to 1.2 million with Indians being the second largest immigrants to USA.
As of 2024, There are 5.2 millions Indian Americans living in the USA with 2/3 being immigrants and 34 percent being US-born and we send 3.3 lakh Indian students to study there every year which is the highest cohort. Another large cohort is of Illegal immigrants whose number was 90000. The biggest cohort affected by this is 72% h1b visa holders. The best-laid plan by Trump is big but what is enshrined in their constitution cannot be neglected. As the American civil liberties unions have already taken Trump to court and challenged the decision.