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By Adeola Adeosun
Weekend Night Editor
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President-elect Donald Trump's latest promise to end birthright citizenship drew sharp criticism from his estranged niece Mary Trump, who highlighted that the policy helped establish their own family roots in America.
During an NBC Meet the Press interview with Kristen Welker that aired Sunday, Trump renewed his pledge to eliminate automatic citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants. "We're going to end that because it's ridiculous," Trump said, adding he would attempt to do it "through executive action."
This plan faces significant legal hurdles, most notably a Supreme Court precedent that has stood for over 120 years. The 1898 landmark case United States v. Wong Kim Ark established that individuals born on U.S. soil are entitled to citizenship, regardless of their parents' status. When pressed about inevitable legal challenges, Trump pivoted to discussing litigation costs, claiming such cases "last for years" and cost "hundreds of billions of dollars."
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Newsweek contacted the Trump-Vance transition team via email on Sunday for comment.
Constitutional scholars note that while future presidents can reverse executive orders, amending the Constitution requires extraordinary consensus: A two-thirds majority in congressional chambers plus ratification by 38 state legislatures.
Speaking on MSNBC, Mary Trump emphasized the irony of her uncle's position. "He's a deeply ignorant, cruel man who seems to forget that his father was a first-generation American," she told fill-in host Charles Coleman Jr. "If it hadn't been for birthright citizenship, my grandfather probably wouldn't have been allowed to stay here."
Mary Trump emphasized the 14th Amendment's historical significance during her MSNBC appearance, pointing out the stark contrast between her uncle's position and their family's immigrant success story.
"What he also doesn't understand is the reason why we have the 14th Amendment was because we enslaved an entire race of people," she said, referring to the amendment's role in ensuring citizenship for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.
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The Trump family's American story began on October 7, 1885, when Friedrich Trump, a 16-year-old German barber, bought a one-way ticket to America. According to historical records, he was fleeing three years of compulsory German military service - a decision that would later prove consequential. German historian Roland Paul discovered documents showing that when Friedrich later attempted to return to Germany, authorities revoked his citizenship and ordered him to leave the country over his draft evasion.
For decades, the Trump family concealed these German roots. Donald Trump himself claimed Swedish ancestry in his book "The Art of the Deal," writing that his grandfather "came here from Sweden as a child." According to Trump's cousin and family historian John Walter, this fabrication was maintained at the request of Fred Trump to avoid upsetting Jewish friends and clients in the post-war period.
The immigrant heritage also extends to Trump's maternal side. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, came from Scotland's Isle of Lewis, where she lived in modest circumstances as part of a Gaelic-speaking family of ten children.
Born to a fisherman and subsistence farmer in the village of Tong, she worked as a domestic servant after arriving in America in the 1930s before marrying Fred Trump. She became a naturalized citizen in 1942.
While maintaining his hardline stance on immigration, including plans for mass deportations beginning with those who have committed crimes, Trump expressed openness to protecting "Dreamers" - undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
"I will work with the Democrats on a plan," Trump told Welker, noting that many recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that protects eligible young immigrants from deportation, "have become successful" and own businesses.
DACA recipients must have entered the United States before age 16, lived in the country continuously since 2007, completed high school or obtained a GED, and have no prior convictions. As of March 2023, approximately 578,000 active DACA recipients lived in the United States.
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