When President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship, he immediately drew fierce backlash from constitutional scholars and immigration attorneys. The reason was simple: birthright citizenship is explicitly protected in the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, 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.”
But Trump’s immigration agenda, critics say, has pushed far beyond mass deportations or attempts to reinterpret longstanding constitutional protections.
In a sharply worded article published December 3 by the conservative outlet The Bulwark, journalist Will Saletan argues that Trump is crossing “another line” — threatening the denaturalization of U.S. citizens.
“First, he targeted illegal immigrants,” Saletan writes. “Then he turned to legal immigrants. Now he’s attacking naturalized Americans: citizens who were born elsewhere, particularly in what he derisively calls the ‘Third World.’ He’s trying to pit white Americans against non-white Americans.”
According to Saletan, Trump has begun warning that he could strip citizenship from naturalized Americans whom he claims “undermine domestic tranquility.”
That rhetoric has already energized MAGA figures who are calling for the deportation of political opponents such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — both naturalized citizens. But Saletan stresses that Trump has no constitutional authority to demand Omar’s removal simply because he opposes her political views.
“In particular,” Saletan notes, “Trump lashed out at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a naturalized American born in Somalia. In Trump’s Thanksgiving tirades, he claimed she is ‘always wrapped in her swaddling hijab’ and should be thrown ‘the hell out of our country.’ During a Cabinet meeting on December 2, he went further: ‘Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.… These are people that do nothing but complain.… We don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.’”
Saletan argues that, for Trump and many of his Republican allies, “the era of dog whistles is over.”
“The government of the United States now openly stands for bigotry,” he writes. “It’s not just shutting the borders; it’s targeting Americans. And depending on where you came from, you might be next.”
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