Last week, President Donald Trump said he was preparing an executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship, which is currently considered a constitutional right.
However, this plan has been met with backlash, some of it even coming from Trump’s party.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a strong supporter of the Constitution, is one person who has objected this order, saying that Trump will not be able to end birthright citizenship.
The biggest argument against this executive order is that it would violate the 14th Amendment.

The 14th Amendment states that “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.”
UW Oshkosh sophomore Haley Murphy said she can see the positive and negative side to Trump’s plan.

“I can understand that there’s got to be some sort of practice if someone is just crossing the border and having a baby right then, that’s not entirely fair,” Murphy said. “But I don’t think that if someone has been in the country for such a long time, they were born here, I don’t think it should be taken away.”

UWO junior Drew Kules said she doesn’t pay attention to politics but said this plan shows that more people, including herself, should pay attention.

“We should be more aware,” Kules said. “I’m kind of sad that I didn’t vote when Trump was there and I regret that now because it’s pretty bad with what’s happened.”

UWO freshman Marko Quinones said the 14th Amendment should be upheld because if someone is born in the United States, they are a citizen.
“If you’re born in the United States you should have citizenship, right?” Quinones said. “It’s personally what I believe.”

Along with Paul Ryan, students also don’t see the plan being executed.

Murphy said the backlash and the steps it would take to carry out the order would be the biggest obstacles.

“There’s so much opposition to it, and [Trump] really can’t control everything,” Murphy said. “There’s a lot to go through to get to that point.”
Kules said she hopes the plan doesn’t get passed, but if it is passed, it would be unfair to people who are from immigrant families.

“That’s not fair to people who work just as hard as we do,” Kules said. “I get all this stuff given to me and they don’t. It’s just not fair.”
Quinones said he doesn’t see birthright citizenship being changed due to the amount of steps it takes to change an amendment.

“He said he wants to get rid of it, but I don’t really think that he can,” Quinones said. “So I personally don’t think it holds any water.”
Kules said she doesn’t agree with Trump’s stance toward immigrants and that it is cruel and wrong.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about anybody,” Kules said. “He just sees people as not even a human being. They have lives and children, and they need to support others and get money too, and they can’t.”
Quinones said he can see where Trump is coming from on some points for immigration but he can’t agree with this plan.

“I don’t really want to go too much into it but some things I can and some things, this included, I don’t agree with at all,” Quinones said.
Murphy said Trump is handling the immigration issue in the wrong way and that is why there is so much backlash.

“The way he talks about it is not a good way to do so,” Murphy said. “I think there are some things that he should focus on a little bit more, like the people in the country.”
Overall, people do not agree with this plan and don’t think it will be able to be executed due to the pushback and violations to the 14th Amendment.