Salon.com: on Immigration

ACLU: Birthright citizenship is protected by the 14th amendment

The ACLU has spoken out against Trump's proposed executive order. "The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order, and the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear," the director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project said in a statement. "This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms."

Donald Trump: End birthright citizenship, despite 14th amendment

"It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said. "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress, but now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order. We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the US for 85 years with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous, and it has to end."

An historian explained that guaranteeing automatic citizenship was the intention of the men who drafted the 14th amendment: "Read the debate in the US Senate, Jan. 30, 1866. The framers clarified that children born in the U.S. were citizens regardless of the immigration status of their parents."

Ben Carson: Use Canadian model for guest worker program