Trump's executive order titled “Protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship” aims to end automatic birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment establishes birthright citizenship, meaning any child born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of their parent’s status.

Until the order, which Trump signed the same day he was inaugurated as the 47th president, the U.S. government has, at least the late 1800s, considered the child of any immigrant born on U.S. soil an automatic citizen, even to a mother in the United States illegally.