President's executive order cannot end birthright citizenship, a constitutional right

No president has the authority to erase the civil protections of a constitutional amendment. But that didn’t stop 24 state attorneys general — including Indiana’s Todd Rokita — from asking the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to side with President Donald Trump in his petition to curtail the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship.

The amendment’s opening text provides 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.” That means the president cannot rewrite the Constitution. Nor can Congress.

Indeed, about 30 years after passage of the 14th Amendment in 1866, lawmakers attempted to exclude from its protections children of Chinese parents born in the U.S. But the Supreme Co