More American adults oppose than support President Donald Trump’s proposed changes to birthright citizenship, according to a poll conducted by the Associated Press in January.
The poll indicated that only 3 in 10 American adults were in favour of changing the Constitution to prevent automatic citizenship for children born in the US to illegal immigrants and temporary residents.
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Twenty-eight per cent of US adults strongly supported the end of birthright citizenship, 20 per cent neither favoured nor opposed the policy, while 51 per cent opposed it, the poll found.
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The divide can also be seen across the political spectrum, with 53 per cent of the Republicans polled supporting the end to birthright citizenship, while 20 per cent of them were neutral and 26 per cent opposed the policy.
According to the poll, 73 per cent of Democrats opposed the policy, 11 per cent supported it, and 15 per cent were neither for nor against it.
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Those who identified as Independents, mostly opposed the policy, with 23 per cent in support, 30 per cent neutral and 46 per cent against the policy.
The poll of 1,147 adults was conducted from January 9-13, ahead of Trump’s inauguration using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
End to birthright citizenship
On his first day in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”, seeking to end automatic birthright citizenship for children of people not in the country legally, as well as legal temporary residents such as tourists, students, and those on work visas.
The decision will be applicable to all children born in the US from February 20.
“We’re the only country in the world that does this with birth right, as you know, and it’s just absolutely ridiculous,” Trump said.
In the US, birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states: “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.”
