Professors Lauren Aronson and Michael LeRoy were recently interviewed by the Daily Illini about a change in the automatic citizenship policy that will impact the children of military service members currently serving abroad. Among other things, the new policy stipulates that U.S. military serving abroad are no longer considered to be "residing in the United States" for purposes of acquiring citizenship. 

“I think it’s a solution in search of a problem,” said LeRoy, an expert in labor law and immigration law. “There has been no controversy on the citizenship status of the children of military officers. The President is, in effect, attacking the most important people for defending the freedoms and rights of Americans.”

Both LeRoy and Aronson, the director of the new Immigration Law Clinic at Illinois, believe it’s the first step in ending birthright citizenship, a longtime goal of the Trump campaign. 

“If you look at the rhetoric surrounding immigration and Trump, ever since he was running, (ending birthright citizenship) is what he said he wanted to do. This is another way of getting at it,” Aronson said. “By redefining residency, it’s going to affect children who are born here to unauthorized immigrants who are present in the United States.”

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