Indian-American presidential aspirant Ramaswamy calls for ending birthright citizenship
India TodayContinuing his proposals of harsh policy changes, Indian-American presidential aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy, in his second Republican presidential debate, has said he would favour ending birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants in the US. When asked “what legal premise” he would use to expel undocumented immigrants and their American-born children from the country, Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, resurrected a 2015 proposal of ending birthright citizenship from then-candidate Donald Trump, reported the Washington Post on Wednesday. He said he would go a “step further” by ending “birthright citizenship for the kids of illegal immigrants in this country.” A second-generation Indian-American, Ramaswamy, had earlier criticised the H-1B visa programme saying the current "lottery" system needs to be "gutted" and replaced with a "meritocratic" skill-based immigration scheme to match the needs of the US. According to Politico, from 2018 through 2023, US Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas.