President Donald Trump’s attempts to end birthright citizenship protections guaranteed under the Constitution drew harsh condemnation from U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democrat who serves as the ranking member on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee.
He condemned executive actions President Donald Trump signed on Monday to end automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents who do not have legal status and roll back other protections for immigrants. But birthright citizenship is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which says that “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.” The order has already drawn legal challenges.
Through other executive actions, Trump also declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, authorized the military to deploy to the border and designated drug cartels as terrorists.
Thompson said Trump’s actions would not make positive changes for the U.S. but instead would “inflict cruelty on vulnerable populations.”
“With this barrage of executive orders, President Trump wants Americans to think he is fixing the border, but he is doing nothing of the sort,” the congressman said in a statement on Monday. “His actions will hurt our communities, create unnecessary chaos, and cost American taxpayers billions of dollars every year. In true Trump fashion, he is choosing bluster over substance and partisan politics over people.”
Thompson said fewer people crossed over the border in the months before former President Joe Biden left office in 2024 than in the months before Trump’s first term ended in 2020. The U.S. Border Patrol reported significant, sustainable decreases in illegal border crossings, noting a 60% decrease in encounters along the southwest border from May to December 2024, with November and December having the lowest number of encounters since August 2020 and lower numbers than the 2019 monthly average.
The congressman criticized Trump for blocking asylum for over 1,600 Afghans who are eligible to enter the U.S. as refugees under an executive order that pauses all refugee resettlement to the U.S. indefinitely.
Trump signed actions to end “catch-and-release” policies that released people without legal citizenship status from detention while they waited for immigration court hearings.
The new president is also using his executive power to resume robust use of the death penalty, with a particular emphasis on non-citizens who commit capital crimes, after President Joe Biden had scaled back the use of capital punishment.
“Our southern border is overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, unvetted military-age males from foreign adversaries, and illicit narcotics that harm Americans,” says another order Trump signed to declare a national emergency at the southern border.
In his statement, Thompson said he would “work with anyone who wants to reform our immigration system and better manage our borders.”
“But I will work to stop anyone who flouts the rule of law and ignores our sacred American values,” he said.
