President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his proposal for an executive order ending America's tradition of birthright citizenship should be no more controversial than his predecessor's similar creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program six years ago.

Barack Obama instituted DACA with the stroke of his pen, forbidding the deportation of more than 1 million people who came to the U.S. as minors, brought across the border by deportable illegal immigrants.

Trump wants to attack a different facet of what he calls a 'broken' immigration policy, declaring on his own that when a woman who is illegally on U.S. soil gives birth, her child is not automatically an American citizen.

Obama, Trump told reporters outside the White House, 'actually said' of DACA, '"well, this isn't legal," or "this i can't do, but i'll do it anyway," and then he gets a judge to approve it.'

'Certainly if he can do DACA, we can do this by executive order,' Trump declared.

President Donald Trump wants to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship, and claims the idea isn't so different from Obama's order creating DACA

Obama signed an order in 2012 exempting from deportation more than 1 milion people who had been brought illegally into the U.S. when they were under age 18

Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday as Marine One, his military helicopter, idled on the South Lawn

He said he hopes the fate of the DACA program, which he formally ended but a federal judge required the Department of Homeland Security to continue, is ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

His own attack on birthright citizenship could also end up before America's nine most senior jurists – and quickly – because it would run counter to how legal scholars have interpreted the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment for the last 120 years.

The amendment, written in 1868 and last touched by the Supreme Court thirty years later, states that '[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' are U.S. citizens.'

Debate has raged since then about whether citizens of foreign countries are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. Some legal scholars believe that phrase only refers to hostile occupying armies and foreign diplomatic officials.

Trump said Wednesday that the subject is 'much less complex than people think,' and he doesn't anticipate needing a Constitutional Amendment to get what he wants.

'I believe that you can have a simple vote in Congress, or it's even possible, in my opinion – this is after meeting with some very talented, legal scholars – that you can do it through an executive order,' he explained as the rotors from a waiting Marine One chopper whipped leaves through the air on the White House's South lawn.

'I’d rather do it through Congress, because that’s permanent,' he said, adding that 'I may very well do it by executive order.'

Obama declared in 2012 that his administration would stop deporting a broad category of illegal immigrants, and used an executive order to do it

Trump wants to end the tradition of conferring U.S. citizenship on babies born inside the country's borders regardless of whether their parents are Americans

Hundreds of thousands of babies are born each year to illegal immigrants parents in the United States, and the conventional reading of the 14th Amendment gives them all citizenship rights – something Canada is the only other First World country to offer (stock photo)

Trump tweeted Wednesday that the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment only applies to people who aren't 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the U.S. – meaning in his view that babies born to people in the country illegally don't enjoy its benefits

The president cited Democrat Harry Reid, who was a Nevada senator in 1993 when he said 'no sane country' would grant automatic citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrant mothers

Trump has spent much of the past 48 hours explaining his statement in a televised interview that the Constitution doesn't grant automatic citizenship to every child born inside the country's borders.

On Wednesday morning he reintroduced the controversial term 'anchor baby' into the national debate and cited a retired Democratic Senate leader to support his argument.

'So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other,' Trump tweeted.

'It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", the president added, before cutting his message off in mid-sentence and pausing for nearly an hour before continuing.

'Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane,' Trump claimed, referring to a now-infamous Senate floor speech in which Reid, a Nevada Democrat and future Senate majority leader, blasted the practice of birthright citizenship.

'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Reid said in 1993.

'If you break our laws by entering our country without permission to give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that's a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?'

'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said in 1993, years before he became the Senate majority leader. A quarter-century later, he says he was wrong back then

Trump on Wednesday posted a video clip of the moment, along with the caption: 'Harry Reid, when he was sane, agreed with us on Birthright Citizenship!'

Hours later during his seven-minute gaggle with reporters, he snarked: 'All you have to do is take a look at what Harry Reid said in 1993. And guess what? Before he went insane, he got it right.'

In a typical year about 250,000 illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S., driving conservative Republicans to stoke controversy about their long-term impacts on welfare systems, education costs and other drivers of the national debt.

Current national policy stems from an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, but the high court has never spoken on the question of whether the 14th Amendment covers children born to people inside the U.S. illegally.

On Wednesday Trump suggested Democrats' conversion away from Reid's 1993 positon is tied to the party's acceptance of an 'open borders' philosophy 'which brings massive Crime.'

'Don’t forget the nasty term Anchor Babies,' he added. 'I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!'

Reid, now retired, fired back at Trump hours after his tweet, saying he was wrong to advocate against illegal immigration a quarter-century ago.

'In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake,' he said in a statement.

'After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, "Harry, what are you doing, don’t you know that my father is an immigrant?" She set me straight.'

Trump, he said, 'wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong.'

Trump is unusual among American politicians for refusing to dance around the term 'anchor babies,' which refers to the practice of using an infant birth to establish a generations-long link to the U.S. – one that can later bring more family members in.

During one 2015 press conference in New Hampshire, he mocked a Hispanic reporter who challenged him to stop using what amounts to 'an offensive term.'

Trump asked what he should say instead, and was told: 'The American born child of undocumented immigrants.'

'You want me to say that every time?' the future president mocked, dismissing the request as 'politically correct.'

'I'll use the term "anchor babies",' he insisted.

Republican leaders are split on whether Trump can end the tradition of birthright citizenship with an executive order, as he said in an interview Monday that he intends to do.

The vice president and the speaker of the House took opposite sides of the debate on Tuesday.

House Speaker Paul Ryan insisted Tuesday that the White House can't use an executive order to change the government's interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution

Trump, shown leaving the White House on Tuesday with first lady Melania Trump, has given his anti-illegal-immigrant base some new red meat with the proposal, just a week before the midterm elections

Speaker Paul Ryan told a Kentucky radio interviewer that the White House would have to change the Constitution, which requires working with Congress, and couldn't act on its own.

In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake. After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, "Harry, what are you doing, don’t you know that my father is an immigrant?" She set me straight. And in my 36 years in Washington, there is no more valuable lesson I learned than the strength and power of immigrants and no issue I worked harder on than fixing our broken immigration system. Immigrants are the lifeblood of our nation. They are our power and our strength. This president wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong. – Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada

'You obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,' Ryan said.

And in a sour look back at the 2012 beginnings of the DACA program, which spared hundreds of thousands of 'Dreamers' from deportation, Ryan noted that 'we didn’t like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives we believe in the Constitution.'

'As a conservative, I'm a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process,' he added. 'But where we obviously totally agree with the president is getting at the root issue here, which is unchecked illegal immigration.'

Vice President Mike Pence insisted Tuesday that there's nothing unconstitutional about Trump declaring that an babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. will no longer automatically become American citizens.

'We all know what the 14th Amendment says,' Pence told Politico during an on-stage interview. 'We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment.'

'But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally,' Pence argued.

Trump said in an interview with Axios that he wants to sign an order ending the practice of awarding citizenship to children who conservatives have long termed 'anchor babies.'

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the 14th Amendment applies to illegal immigrants; South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that he'll introduce legislation mirroring Trump's executive order

Graham sent a flurry of tweets agreeing with Trump's approach and offering to ingtroduce a bill that would codify it into law

Trump's move came a week before midterm elections and after a second migrant caravan (pictured) crossed into Mexico on Monday

Trump, who has long been critical of the practice, said: 'We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end.'

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally on most issues but not always immigration questions, said in a series of tweets that he welcomes a change.

'Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship,' he said on Twitter. 'I’ve always supported comprehensive immigration reform – and at the same time – the elimination of birthright citizenship.'

'The United States is one of two developed countries in the world who grant citizenship based on location of birth. This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end,' he added.

Greham also tweeted that he will 'introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President.'