George Conway, whose wife is a counselor to the president and who was once under consideration for top job at the Justice Department, is no stranger to publicly opposing the Trump administration. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images politics George Conway breaks with wife, calls revoking birthright citizenship 'unconstitutional'

George Conway, a prominent attorney and the husband of presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, threw cold water Tuesday on the notion that President Donald Trump could do away with the birthright citizenship guarantee in the 14th Amendment via executive order, breaking publicly with his wife's defense of Trump’s announced plan.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, George Conway and former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal ripped Trump’s plan to end the practice of birthright citizenship by issuing an executive order interpreting the 14th Amendment to confer citizenship only to babies born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country legally.


“Sometimes the Constitution’s text is plain as day and bars what politicians seek to do,” the pair wrote. “That’s the case with President Trump’s proposal to end ‘birthright citizenship’ through an executive order. Such a move would be unconstitutional and would certainly be challenged. And the challengers would undoubtedly win.”

George Conway and Katyal, who noted in their op-ed that they sit on opposite sides of the political spectrum, are in agreement with the vast majority of legal experts who say that, even if birthright citizenship is not guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, it would take an act of Congress to amend it.

George Conway, once under consideration to be a top official at the Justice Department, is no stranger to publicly opposing the Trump administration. He has grown increasingly vocal, mostly via his Twitter account, in criticizing the president’s rhetoric and actions, often putting him at odds with his wife’s vociferous defense of Trump.

Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday defended the White House proposal, which immigration hard-liners cheered. “Many other constitutional scholars have said that the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted or misused,” the presidential adviser told Fox News’ Bret Baier Tuesday night.

Playbook PM Sign up for our must-read newsletter on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

But while some have cautioned that Trump does not have the unilateral authority to end birthright citizenship, despite his claims that the White House counsel had advised him otherwise, George Conway and Katyal argued that the citizenship guarantee — even for undocumented immigrants — is settled law as written and defended the substance of the amendment as well.

“At its core, birthright citizenship is what our 14th Amendment is all about, bridging the Declaration of Independence’s promise that ‘all men are created equal’ with a constitutional commitment that all those born in the United States share in that equality,” they wrote.

“The fact that the two of us, one a conservative and the other a liberal, agree on this much despite our sharp policy differences underscores something it is critically important to remember during a time marked by so much rancor and uncivil discourse: Our Constitution is a bipartisan document, designed to endure for ages. Its words have meaning that cannot be wished away.”