It seems that Donald Trump plans to tackle one element of the immigration crisis with a carrot and a stick.

In an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that was released yesterday, President-elect Trump discussed immigration at length. “You have no choice” but to deport all illegals, he said, albeit with other work to be done to figure out all the components — especially when it comes to kids.

For that, he has a two-pronged approach.

Step one: Work with Congress to craft a legislative deal for the so-called “Dreamers,” clever branding for the kids who were brought here illegally by their parents or someone else and who think of America as their only home. They are covered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. According to Newsweek, “DACA applicants, also commonly known as dreamers, must have entered the United States before turning 16, lived in the country continuously since June 15, 2007, completed high school or obtained a GED, and have no prior convictions.”

There’s widespread sympathy for this group, again thanks to the Democrats’ marketing campaign on their behalf. Who could be against letting “Dreamers” stay?

“We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age, and many of these are middle-aged people now, they don’t even speak the language of their country,” Trump said. “I will work with the Democrats on a plan.”

On numerous occasions during his presidency, Barack Obama rightly asserted that he had no power to create legal status for this group in the face of deliberate inaction by Congress. Rather than work with Republicans, he did it on his own anyway.

Trump undid Obama’s lawless decision, only to be immediately sued by Democrats. It has been tied up in court for years, so here we are, a decade later, with an immigration crisis that dwarfs anything Obama conceived of.

Step two: Eliminate birthright citizenship. As we have argued previously, birthright citizenship is a clear constitutional violation. Heritage Foundation scholar Hans von Spakovsky calls it a “fundamental misunderstanding of the 14th Amendment.

The 14th Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Its authors would never have conceived of our modern reality where someone crosses the border illegally only to have a child and win citizenship for that child based on nothing other than the location of his or her birth.

Trump called it “ridiculous.” Indeed, it is, and this flagrantly lawless practice has existed for far too long. “We have to end it,” he said.

He’s right, but that’s going to be a lot easier said than done, in part because even he seems to be under the mistaken impression that it’s what the 14th Amendment says.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1898’s U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that a child born to Chinese immigrants was a citizen. The catch is that his parents were legal permanent residents, but in practice, that distinction has become irrelevant.

Regarding illegal immigration, there are those pesky words in the 14th Amendment: “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” A person who illegally crossed our border is only subject to American jurisdiction in the sense that deportation is the legal consequence of their illegal crossing. Rewarding illegal behavior with immediate citizenship for any lawbreaker’s child is insane, not least because it incentivizes illegal behavior.

That’s why what started as a very small group of people has ballooned to perhaps millions of “anchor babies.” Once a baby is born and granted citizenship, he or she becomes an “anchor” for other family members to stay.

Trump understands this, saying in a campaign video, “My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming, and encourage many of the aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries.”

To be clear, virtually no one is suggesting that citizenship be revoked from people who were granted it, however dubiously. Going forward, though, it must stop.

Unfortunately, that is nowhere near a majority opinion. Trump promises to craft an executive order to stop it, but it will immediately be challenged. Similar to the idea that possession is nine-tenths of the law, conferring birthright citizenship on babies born here to illegal alien parents has been happening for so many years that far too few Americans even question it. Democrats demand it and smear anyone who objects as a heartless ghoul.

That legal challenge is part of Trump’s strategy, hoping that the Supreme Court will set things right.

To that point, the mainstream media often trot out things like this from The Wall Street Journal’s new pages: “Many constitutional scholars and civil-rights groups have said a change to birthright citizenship can’t be done through executive action and would require amending the Constitution — a rare and difficult process.” Our contention, however, is that it does not require a constitutional amendment to interpret an already existing amendment correctly. Whether the courts get it right is another matter, especially given Chief Justice John Roberts’s preference for precedent.

Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, isn’t optimistic, saying, “I think [the Supreme Court will] probably uphold the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment.”

Ultimately, what Trump has laid out is a sound approach to the problem. We must deal with those who are here in satisfactory ways and disincentivize future illegal crossings.

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