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Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship could fundamentally reshape America, analysts said Tuesday, overturning a principle that has underpinned the country for more than 150 years.Moments after being sworn into office, the Republican president came out swinging, with a raft of executive orders aimed at slashing migration and changing how the US determines who is allowed to live here.Most eye-catchingly, Trump took aim at previsions guaranteed in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution that grant citizenship to anyone born on US soil.”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,” reads the document, which was ratified in 1868 as the postbellum US sought to knit itself back together.If implemented, the order Trump signed on Tuesday would prevent the federal government from issuing passports, citizenship certificates or other documents to children whose mothers are in the country illegally or temporarily, and whose fathers are not US citizens or permanent residents.Gil Guerra, an immigration policy analyst at US political think tank the Niskanen Center, said the notion of birthright citizenship is a defining characteristic of the American experiment.The fact that everyone born here has a real stake in the country galvanizes a sense of cohesion that is absent in other systems, he said.”It has helped assimilation by giving people who are born here an immediate sense of belonging,” he told AFP.”I think what people oftentimes overlook is that it also places responsibilities on the children of immigrants to see themselves as Americans and to be patriotic.”That feeds into the fierce pride that many Americans feel in their flag, their national anthem and in institutions like the military.Making that precarious could have implications for social stability, said Guerra.The modern United States has not suffered from the pockets of separatism that beset other world powers, like Russia, where tranches of the population feel like they don’t belong.”The US has managed to completely avoid that, because our political identity has for centuries now been borne on the premise that, if you’re born in the US, you are an American,” said Guerra.- Supreme court -Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the 14th Amendment was “crystal clear,” and muddying the waters would have implications for people well beyond the babies born to illegal immigrants.”All you needed before was a birth certificate proving you were born here… now, you’d have to show extensive documentation of your ancestry and your parents’ citizenship,” he told AFP.”That makes everybody’s life harder.”Trump supporters who fret about changing demographics sometimes complain that new arrivals and their children take resources that would otherwise be available for the established population.But, says Guerra, the expansive approach to citizenship the US has historically taken has benefits to that very population — whose own birth rate is plunging — in terms of having enough working-age people to fund social security programs and to do the labor that a dynamic economy requires.The demographic edge the US enjoys is also crucial in times of war.Not “having a young population that can potentially serve in the military, in the events of conflict… could potentially endanger the United States,” he said.Trump’s executive order faced an immediate legal challenge, with 22 states — including California and New York — suing to prevent its implementation.The issue will almost certainly end up in the US Supreme Court.While some legal scholars think Trump’s efforts will come unstuck, a 6-3 conservative majority — three of whom were appointed by Trump — may have different ideas.”I don’t think it’s inconceivable (that it will be upheld), which is what I would have said in 2019,” Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia told The New York Times. “The ground is shifting.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called Tuesday for “cool heads” in the face of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of severe new restrictions on migration, among other policy changes.Sheinbaum said Mexico was preparing to repatriate people from other countries expelled by the United States, after Trump vowed to deport “millions and millions” of migrants.”It’s important to always keep a cool head and refer to signed agreements, beyond actual speeches,” she told her regular morning conference, a day after Trump announced he was sending troops to the border with Mexico to halt illegal migration and again threatened major tariffs on Mexican imports.On his first day back in office Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border “to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed under Trump’s first presidency, under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.The White House also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.Sheinbaum said her government would provide humanitarian assistance to deported migrants from other countries before repatriating them.If migrants cannot enter the United States, “it is much better for them to return to their country of origin,” she said.Shelters have been set up for migrants in border cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo. But “there is not enough space” and the situation could become “critical,” warned Carlos Pena, the mayor of Reynosa, a city just south of Texas.Sheinbaum, a leftwinger who has reacted to months of threats from Trump with a mix of pragmatism and firmness, noted that several of the measures dated from Trump’s first mandate. She also downplayed his renewed threat to impose blanket 25 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada over what he called their failure to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking into the United States.Trump said he could enact the tariffs on February 1.Sheinbaum noted that a review of the trade pact between the United States, Mexico and Canada was already planned in 2026.

New US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met counterparts Tuesday from Japan, India and Australia on his first day in office, in a sign of solidarity in the face of China.Rubio’s meetings with the so-called Quad come as President Donald Trump vows to push back against China.But the gathering also marks a contrast to Trump’s frequent dismissal of US allies and partners.Rubio, a three-term senator who a day earlier was unanimously confirmed by his peers, opened his first full day on the job with a four-way meeting with Quad foreign ministers before moving into separate engagements with each.The Quad was envisioned by late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and expanded into a leaders’ summit by former president Joe Biden. China has repeatedly lashed out at the Quad, saying it is a US plot to encircle the rising Asian power. The Quad powers deny attempts at containment but have tried to offer a united front on areas from vaccines to disaster relief to countries in Asia that otherwise could find a greater allure in China.Rubio made no remarks to the press as he met his counterparts. But in a speech to employees as he entered the State Department, Rubio vowed both to defend US diplomats — often maligned by his Republican Party — while pursuing Trump’s belief in “America First.””I expect every nation on earth to advance their national interests. And in those instances — and I hope there will be many —  in which our national interests and theirs align, we look forward to working with them,” Rubio said.”We recognize that there will be those times unfortunately as humans interact with one another because of our nature that there will be conflict,” Rubio said.”We will seek to prevent them and avoid them, but never at the expense of our national security, never at the expense of our national interest and never at the expense of our core values as a nation and as a people,” he said.With Trump’s return, a slew of senior career diplomats quit their posts at the State Department. Trump’s allies have previously cast career diplomats as opponents of Trump’s agenda and vowed to replace them with political appointees.Addressing employees with his wife and four children by his side, Rubio said: “There will be changes.” “But the changes are not meant to be destructive, they’re not meant to be punitive,” he said.”But we need to move faster than we ever have because the world is changing faster than we ever have.”Trump has frequently described NATO allies as freeloaders who do not pay their fair share for defense.Biden, in closing remarks on foreign policy delivered last week at the State Department, pointed to his work on the Quad as part of a series of efforts to strengthen alliances.”We’ve reinvigorated people’s faith in the United States as a true, true partner,” Biden said.

A coalition of Democratic-leaning states launched legal actions Tuesday seeking to block Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship in the United States.The two separate lawsuits involving a total of 22 states, including California and New York, come the day after Trump took office and quickly unveiled a phalanx of executive orders he hopes will reshape American immigration.Chief among them was an order eliminating the automatic granting of citizenship to anyone born on US soil, a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the country’s constitution.If implemented, the order would prevent the federal government from issuing passports, citizenship certificates or other documents to children whose mothers are in the country illegally or temporarily, and whose father is not a US citizen or permanent resident.”The President’s executive order attempting to rescind birthright citizenship is blatantly unconstitutional and quite frankly, un-American,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said as he announced the suit.”We are asking a court to immediately block this order from taking effect and ensure that the rights of American-born children impacted by this order remain in effect while litigation proceeds. “The President has overstepped his authority by a mile with this order, and we will hold him accountable.”The California-led suit, which was filed in federal court in Massachusetts, was joined later Tuesday by one filed in Washington state, and comes alongside a similar suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other advocacy groups in New Hampshire.The 14th Amendment was adopted in the aftermath of the US Civil War, as part of an effort to ensure the rights of former slaves and their children.It says, in part: “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.”Trump’s order, if it stands, will come into effect 30 days from when he signed it.The president acknowledged as he put pen to paper that it was likely to face legal challenges.”I think we have good grounds, but you could be right. I mean, we’ll find out,” he said, when asked about the likelihood of a legal effort to halt it.Trump also claimed — wrongly — that the United States is the only country in the world that grants birthright citizenship.In reality, dozens of others do, among them the neighboring countries of Canada and Mexico.

President Donald Trump has vowed to be a peacemaker in his new term, but his aggressive early actions threaten to alienate US friends in a way that could hinder his ambitions, experts say.In an inaugural address on Monday, Trump said that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and a unifier” and pointed to his support for a new ceasefire in Gaza.Speaking to reporters as he returned to the White House after four years, Trump also suggested he would press Russia to make a deal to end its three-year invasion of Ukraine, quipping that President Vladimir Putin — with whom he had famously warm relations in the past — knows he is “destroying” his own country.But in the throwback to the bedlam of his 2017-2021 term, Trump’s return was also consumed by rage over grievances at home, and the most memorable foreign-policy line of his inaugural address was a vow to take back the Panama Canal, which the United States returned in 1999 but where Trump charges that China has gained too strong a foothold.Trump has also spoken of seizing Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, moved to send the military to the Mexican border to stop migration, vowed tariffs even against close allies and announced the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization and Paris climate accord, both home to almost every other country.”Trump’s worldview seems to be contradictory. He has a streak that is pro-peace and another streak which seems more confrontational and militarist,” said Benjamin Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, which advocates restraint.During his first stint in power, Trump ordered a strike that killed senior Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and vowed confrontation with China, although he also boasted of keeping US troops out of new wars and sought diplomacy with North Korea.”In the first term, the more confrontational and militarist streak won out more often than not” on tension spots such as Iran, Friedman said.This time, he said, at least on Ukraine and the Middle East, Trump appears to have shifted to a more progressive stance.But on Latin America, and in his selection of aides with hawkish views on China, Trump remains hawkish, Friedman said.He said that Trump essentially had a 19th-century philosophy in line with populist president Andrew Jackson, feeling a comfort with threatening the use of force to achieve national interests.Such a way of thinking, for Trump, “isn’t consistent necessarily with being a peacemaker or a warmonger” but rather is a mix.- Lesson from China? -Trump made no clear mention of US allies on his inaugural day. In the past he has described NATO allies as freeloaders and pushed them to pay more for their own security.However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was meeting Tuesday with counterparts from Japan, India and Australia — the so-called Quad of democracies which China sees as an effort to contain its rise.Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Trump should be mindful of lessons from China, whose assertive “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy brought together a number of Asian countries on the receiving end.”It would be a profound shift if the United States went from being seen as the principal provider of security to being the principal source on uncertainty,” Alterman said.Trump, as he seeks to negotiate deals, “has an interest in keeping friendly countries on his side,” Alterman said.Kori Schake, who served in senior defense planning roles under former president George W. Bush, said it was too early to tell the impact of Trump’s “chaos” on peacemaking and said that early actions could have been even more severe.”But the actions he did take are still damaging. Withdrawing from the World Health Organization will give us less warning of emergent disease,” she said.”Antagonizing Panama is counterproductive and will fan anti-Americanism throughout the hemisphere,” she said.

Elon Musk’s hand gestures at an inauguration event for US President Donald Trump, which quickly drew comparisons to Nazi salutes, appear to have resonated in some far-right extremist spaces online.Several neo-Nazi leaders have shared clips of the viral moment from Musk’s Monday speech, in which the billionaire brought his hand to his chest and extended it straight out, twice, before saying: “My heart goes out to you.””Donald Trump White Power moment,” the head of a neo-Nazi group in Australia wrote on Telegram, in one of several posts AFP reviewed.Many people, including several historians, have likened the movement to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler — criticism that Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, has dismissed as “dirty tricks” and “propaganda.”On the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront, a user posted an image of Musk striking the pose under text reading, “Heil Hitler.”A chapter of the far-right Proud Boys militia group, whose members were among those Trump pardoned Monday for storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, also shared video of the moment on Telegram.The group offered a slightly different message: “Hail Trump!””There is no question among white supremacists that Musk was making a Nazi salute,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told AFP.Beirich said far-right figures were “more than thrilled” and that “generally, they believe Musk’s raised arm is an endorsement of their beliefs.”The University of Virginia’s T. Kenny Fountain, who studies rhetoric and extremism, said that Musk’s “intention is important, but so is reception.””If an eager audience interprets this gesture as a meaningful acknowledgment, we are in dangerous territory,” Fountain wrote on Bluesky. “Unsurprisingly, it seems many on the far-right are reading it that way.”Andrew Torba, founder of the social media platform Gab, posted a photo of Musk and wrote, “Incredible things are happening already.”Christopher Pohlhaus, the leader of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, shared a side-by-side video edit to Telegram that lined Musk’s movements up with footage of the group’s masked members making Nazi salutes while carrying swastika flags.Followers reacted with lightning bolt emojis, a reference to the Nazi regime’s SS paramilitaries.On Musk’s social media platform X, an anonymous account that has Hitler speeches pinned on its page shared another mashup video comparing Musk’s gesture to clips of Hitler.”Sieg Heil?? Are we so back?” the post says. It received more than 2 million views.

Donald Trump was forced Tuesday to sit through a sermon by a bishop begging him to have “mercy” on gays and poor immigrants as the Republican celebrated the start to his second term as US president.Trump scowled as the Washington National Cathedral’s Mariann Edgar Budde pleaded the case from the pulpit for LGBT people and illegal migrants — two groups that Trump targeted with executive orders within hours of being sworn in on Monday.Trump had gone to the traditional presidential service to commemorate his inauguration and was clearly not expecting the criticism.”I ask you to have mercy, Mr President,” the bishop said softly, evoking the “fear” that she said is felt across the country.”There are gay and lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families,” she said.”The people who pick our farms and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation,” she said.”But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”An unsmiling Trump, who sat in the first pew, looked back at Budde and sometimes away. His family and Vice President JD Vance seemed similarly surprised and displeased at the intervention.Asked later by a reporter for his reaction, Trump said: “I didn’t think it was a good service.””They could do much better.”Among scores of executive orders signed late Monday were measures to suspend the arrival of asylum seekers and expel migrants in the country illegally.Trump also decreed that only two sexes — male and female, but not transgender — will be recognized.

Donald Trump has claimed a mandate from God to reshape America — but the earthly powers of the US courts, a super-thin majority in Congress and foreign capitals may have other ideas.The Republican president unleashed a “shock and awe” blitz of executive orders in his first 24 hours back in power that overturned many of his predecessor Joe Biden’s policies.The question now is how many of the 78-year-old’s sweeping directives — on everything from immigration to gender, climate and the TikTok video app — will actually succeed.”The storm of executive orders from Trump — particularly those aimed at immigration and birthright citizenship — are probably going to end up as big constitutional losers,” veteran political strategist Mike Fahey told AFP.Many of Trump’s orders focused on immigration — including the declaration of a national emergency on the US southern border with Mexico.But the one ending the automatic right to citizenship for anyone born in the United States could cause him the most problems. The right is enshrined in the US Constitution, and has also been upheld by the US Supreme Court.Rights groups have already filed lawsuits against the move.”You could be right. You’ll find out,” Trump said Monday during an Oval Office signing ceremony when asked whether his birthright citizenship plans could be derailed.Another early target for lawsuits is the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting agency headed by billionaire Elon Musk.- ‘Edges of executive power’ -Trump is far from the first US president to issue a flurry of orders to show policy wins from day one.And for America’s greatest political showman, the visuals may be as important as the substance. His pardons for more than 1,500 of the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the US Capitol in 2021 will also appeal to his supporters.”These types of changes are red meat for his base,” said Nicholas Jacobs, associate professor of government at Maine’s liberal arts Colby College.”While much of it is symbolic and will face legal challenges, it is exactly the type of dramatic action his supporters want to see.”But Trump’s blizzard of orders was exceptional and genuinely tests the limits of presidential power.Trump is feeling so emboldened by his election win that he even declared in his inaugural address that he was “saved by God to make America great again” after surviving an assassin’s bullet at a July campaign rally.”The basic nature and the sheer number of Trump’s Day One actions suggest a presidency that will press hard on the edges of executive power,” said Fahey.Trump will also try to get some of his executive orders enshrined by Congress to prevent a future president doing exactly what he has done to many of Biden’s prized achievements.But Trump’s tiny majority in the House of Representatives means passing any legislation will be a struggle.- ‘Biggest obstacle’ -The courts could be a still bigger problem, even if the US Supreme Court is now conservative-dominated thanks to Trump’s three appointments to the nine-member bench in his first term.”The biggest obstacle Trump faces in implementing his wide-ranging agenda is the legal system,” said political analyst Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at legal think tank The Lawfare Project.On the world stage, Trump is counting that a return of his disruptive style will force other countries to make deals — but that depends on whether they are ready to play the game.Trump said he would impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, “take back” the Panama Canal and get Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States.On TikTok, he has ordered a 75-day pause on enforcing a law effectively banning TikTok in the US, as he floated an idea of partnering with the app’s Chinese owner.”I may do the deal or I may not do the deal,” Trump said.On his order to declare drug cartels as terrorist organizations, he said that “Mexico probably doesn’t want that but we have to do it.”Trump has even made out-of-this world promises, claiming it was America’s “manifest destiny” to “plant the Stars and Stripes” on the planet Mars.

Donald Trump’s nominee to represent Washington at the United Nations railed against “anti-Semitic rot” in the global organization as she was grilled by senators at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday.New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik noted that America contributes more to the UN than any other country and called for reform to ensure its tax dollars were not “propping up entities that are counter to American interests, anti-Semitic, or engaging in fraud, corruption or terrorism.”A right-wing firebrand who was considered a moderate before the Trump era, Stefanik is seen as one of the most vocal supporters in Congress of both Israel and US Jewish causes.”It’s one of the reasons why, in my conversation with President Trump, I was interested in this position — because if you look at the anti-Semitic rot within the United Nations, there are more resolutions targeting Israel than any other country, any other crisis, combined,” Stefanik told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.Stefanik, 40, made the same criticism of the US higher education system as she touted her record of holding the feet of college administrators to the fire during aggressive questioning last year over anti-Semitism on campuses. “My oversight work led to the most viewed testimony in the history of Congress,” she said.”This hearing with university presidents was heard around the world and viewed billions of times, because it exposed the anti-Semitic rot in colleges and universities and was a watershed moment in American higher education.”Stefanik was pushed on her views on the war in Gaza, and noted that she voted to defund UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Former president Joe Biden halted its US funding over allegations that members were possibly involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks. Stefanik also revealed that she agreed with far-right Israeli ministers who believe Israel has a “biblical right to the entire West Bank” — but avoided being pinned down on whether she supported Palestinian self-determination.Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman is the only Democrat to have pledged his support for Stefanik, but others have indicated they may wave her through and she is expected to be confirmed with little drama in a vote of the full Senate. “If confirmed, I will work to ensure that our mission to the United Nations serves the interest of the American people, and represents American President Trump’s America First, peace-through-strength foreign policy,” she said.

US President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons of Capitol rioters drew starkly contrasting reactions on Tuesday, largely embraced by his Republican supporters and vehemently condemned by Democrats.Former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced as “shameful” Trump’s pardons of participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the congressional session held to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.”The president’s actions are an outrageous insult to our justice system and the heroes who suffered physical scars and emotional trauma as they protected the Capitol, the Congress and the Constitution,” Pelosi said.Michael Fanone, a former Washington police officer who was repeatedly shocked with a Taser and badly beaten by members of the pro-Trump mob, said he has been “betrayed by my country.””And I’ve been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump,” Fanone told CNN. “The leader of the Republican Party pardoned hundreds of violent cop assaulters. Six individuals who assaulted me as I did my job on January 6… will now walk free.”Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, described Trump’s pardons of members of “a mob of Trump-inspired thugs” as a “national embarrassment.”But the pardons were welcomed by January 6 defendants and their Republican backers.Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman” who became one of the faces of the Capitol riot because of his red, white and blue facepaint, bare chest and unusual horned headgear, welcomed the pardon in a post on X.”I GOT A PARDON BABY! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!” said Chansley. “J6ers are getting released & JUSTICE HAS COME…””God bless President Trump!!!” said far-right Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene.”It’s finally over. J6’ers are being released,” Greene said on X. “Never forget what the Democrats did.”- ‘I think it was a bad idea’ -Not all Republican lawmakers were as ecstatic as Greene about the blanket pardons.”Many of them probably it was the right thing to do,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told Spectrum News.”But anybody who is convicted of assault on a police officer — I can’t get there at all. I think it was a bad idea.”Other Republicans who had advised against pardoning those convicted of assaulting police officers were silent, including Vice President JD Vance, who just a week ago told Fox News “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”Trump, hours after being sworn in on Monday, granted pardons to more than 1,500 people who stormed the Capitol including those convicted of assaulting police officers.He described them as “hostages” and ordered that all pending criminal cases against Capitol riot defendants be dropped.Among those pardoned was David Dempsey, 37, a California man who pleaded guilty to assaulting two police officers and was described by prosecutors as one of the “most violent” members of the pro-Trump mob.Dempsey used his “hands, feet, flag poles, crutches, pepper spray, broken pieces of furniture, and anything else he could get his hands on, as weapons against the police,” prosecutors said.Dempsey had been serving a 20-year prison sentence.Also receiving a pardon was Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for directing a military-style assault on the Capitol.The pardons were celebrated in posts on Proud Boys Telegram channels, with several chapters using them as recruiting tools and others volunteering to help enforce Trump’s pledge to deport millions of migrants.Stewart Rhodes, the leader of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers, was also among those released after his 18-year prison sentence was commuted to time served. Both Tarrio and Rhodes had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.The Capitol assault followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race. He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.Trump was charged with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.But the case never made it to trial, and was dropped following Trump’s November election victory under the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.