WHEN President Donald Trump says US birthright citizenship “will be ended one way or the other” it is all but certain it will not end the way he wants, which is revoking the right by executive order.

Birthright citizenship is a 150-year-old principle that says anyone born on US soil is automatically an American citizen. Even though Trump’s comments have ignited a heated debate about whether the president has the unilateral power to end birthright citizenship in the US by executive order, the first sentence of the 14th amendment to the US constitution establishes the principle of birthright citizenship: “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.”

So whereas an executive order is a directive issued by the president of the US that has the force of law, an executive order can’t change the constitution. At least that’s the way most legal scholars see it.

Still, Trump makes a valid point when he describes it as ridiculous that such a baby “is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all those benefits”. Birthright citizenship is a magnet for illegal immigration and encourages undocumented pregnant women to cross the border in order to give birth. No one who debated and adopted the 14th amendment contemplated a large-scale influx of undocumented immigrants, or the rise of birth tourism.

Only around 30 countries practice automatic “jus soli”, or “right of the soil” without restriction. The majority of these nations, like the US, are part of the Americas and have a history of colonization and mass emigration from Europe. Save for Ireland, no country in Europe allows it. Except for perhaps one country in Asia and one in Africa, nobody else does it. It is certainly not practiced in the Arab world.

Trump’s birthright assault should be seen in the context of next week’s mid-term elections. He made a hardline immigration stance a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign and views it as one of the reasons he prevailed. As with the White House announcement of more than 5,000 troops dispatched to the US border to prevent a caravan of Latin American migrants from coming in, this appears to be another effort to focus American attention on the immigration issue. Now, in the electoral home stretch that will huge implications for his next two years in office, Trump is reaching again for what made him president.

But politics aside, it’s understandable that Trump opposes the status quo. It is unfair that undocumented immigrants, through their law breaking, get citizenship for their children. The child is given all related financial, legal, and social benefits, and the parents cash in.

People also go to the US on a legal tourist visa simply to have a child. Some pay huge amounts of money in order to travel to the US and be housed, often in shady accommodations, while pregnant with the intent of birthing a child during their stay. Once the child is born and citizenship is conveyed, they return home. Some may do this for a chance at economic opportunities and a better life, but some may do so with nefarious intentions.

Citizenship provides numerous benefits that cannot be accessed through a temporary visa or illegal immigration. Thus, privileges that would normally not be conveyed are suddenly granted.

It is difficult to imagine a more irrational and self-defeating legal system than one that makes unauthorized entry to the US a criminal offense and simultaneously provides perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry: a grant of American citizenship.

The goal of birthright citizenship laws was to ensure that future generations could benefit from the hard work their parents put in to establish a life for their family. Mere birth on US soil is not enough.