US President Donald Trump on Tuesday took a jab at China and mocked President Xi Jinping after the US Supreme Court dealt a blow to his efforts to restrict birthright citizenship.In a post on Truth Social, Trump sarcastically congratulated China after the court upheld the longstanding interpretation of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment and rejected his executive order seeking to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the US to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.“I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!” Trump wrote.The ruling came on the final day of a Supreme Court term that has largely favoured Trump’s expansive view of presidential powers. The court, however, rejected his attempt to alter the constitutional understanding of birthright citizenship through executive action.In a separate post, Trump said Congress should move quickly to change the law.“The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process,” Trump wrote.“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start today to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my complete and total support!” he added.‘China exploited US birthright citizenship’Earlier in the month of January, conservative author Peter Schweizer in his book The Invisible Coup, alleged that China has exploited US birthright citizenship laws through “birth tourism”.Schweizer claims that Beijing has pursued a long-term strategy of sending expectant mothers to the United States to give birth, thereby securing US citizenship for their children. According to his account, many of these children return to China, are raised there, and later re-enter the United States as adults with full citizenship rights.“China is not simply competing with America economically,” Schweizer writes, claiming Beijing is “weaponising US birthright citizenship rules” to create a “time bomb” within the country.Schweizer estimates that between 750,000 and 1.5 million Chinese nationals hold US citizenship because they were born in the United States, though these figures have not been independently verified.
