JD Vance slams birthright citizenship ruling as 'preposterous,' warns it will fuel 'birth tourism'

WASHINGTON, DC: Vice President JD Vance defended the Trump administration's opposition to birthright citizenship on Tuesday, June 30, after the Supreme Court ruled that children born in the United States are constitutionally entitled to citizenship regardless of their parents' immigration status.

Vance described the ruling as a "major mistake" and argued it encourages what he called "birth tourism." Vance said the administration would continue pursuing legislative, administrative and future legal avenues to restrict birthright citizenship.

Vance says ruling encourages 'birth tourism,' vows to keep fighting

 In an interview with Fox News, Vance criticized the court's ruling, arguing that it creates incentives for foreign nationals to travel to the United States solely to obtain citizenship for their children.

"One of the things it might invite... is people to come here quite literally on a vacation, give birth, and then all of a sudden the child and their family have the full benefits of American citizenship," Vance said. "It's just a preposterous ruling, and the absurdity of that outcome suggests why the Supreme Court should have went the other way."

Although Vance said conservatives were disappointed by the ruling, he argued the decision still left room for future legal challenges.Despite the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling, Vance said, "the fact that this case was a 5-4 decision effectively means that the concept of birthright citizenship... is hanging by a thread."

Vance also said the administration was exploring additional executive and legislative options to narrow access to birthright citizenship. Vance said the administration is also looking at restricting birthright citizenship in US territories, including the Northern Mariana Islands. "We're certainly looking at that," he said.

He further described birthright citizenship as "fundamentally a loophole that now exists in our immigration system that rewards illegal aliens just because they have a baby in the United States while they're in our country illegally."

“We've just got to keep fighting at this," Vance added, arguing that future Supreme Court appointments after the midterms, could ultimately change the legal landscape.

Supreme Court upholds constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the Constitution's citizenship guarantee applies regardless of a parent's immigration status. 

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights, to freely participate in our political community," Roberts wrote. "The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to 'every free-born person in this land.'" He added, "We keep that promise today," he added.

The decision rejected President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to end automatic citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants and certain temporary visa holders. 

Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito, dissented. Alito called the ruling a "serious mistake" that "confers citizenship on virtually anyone who happens to be born in this country," including individuals who travel to the United States specifically to give birth.