22 States Sue to Challenge Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order
The order would end guaranteed citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.
By Gary Gately
A day after President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order decreeing that U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants would no longer be guaranteed citizenship, Democratic attorneys general in 22 states filed lawsuits challenging the order.
Eighteen states, joined by the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., challenged the constitutionality of the order Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. In a separate suit, four other states mounted a legal challenge to the order in U.S. District Court in Washington state.
The states’ lawsuit came a day after the American Civil Liberties Union and Lawyers for Civil Rights sued in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire on behalf of several immigrant organizations.
All three suits argue that Trump’s order violates the 14th Amendment, which the federal government and the courts have interpreted for more than a century to guarantee “birthright citizenship” to children born in the U.S., with rare exceptions for children of foreign diplomats.
Immigration advocates and U.S. bishops also have strongly opposed eliminating birthright citizenship, and the White House appears on a collision course with the Vatican and Catholic prelates over Trump’s immigration policies, including mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
In their 50-page lawsuit, the 18 AGs stated: “The president has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.”
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, a Democrat who led the 18 states’ legal battle along with AGs in California and Massachusetts, called Trump’s order “an extreme and unprecedented act” and an “assault” on the Constitution.
“Presidents in this country have broad powers, but they are not kings,” Platkin told reporters. “They do not have the power to rewrite the Constitution. They do not have the power. They do not have the power to unilaterally disregard our laws.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James said birthright citizenship forms “a cornerstone of our nation’s commitment to justice….”
“Our constitution is not open to reinterpretation by executive order or presidential decree,” James added in a statement. “President Trump’s attempt to undermine the fundamental right to birthright citizenship is not just unconstitutional. It is profoundly dangerous.”
The lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive order also say it would result in cuts to federal funding to states to provide children of undocumented immigrants services such as basic health care, foster care and early interventions for infants, toddlers and students with disabilities.
The suits asked courts to invalidate Trump’s order, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” and to issue injunctions to prevent it from taking effect.
The 14th Amendment — passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified by the states two years later — came in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling that the Constitution denied citizenship to Black Americans.
The amendment’s Citizenship Clause states: “All people 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.”
But Trump’s order asserts that the 14th Amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”
Rather, the president’s order says, the amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship people born in the U.S. but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Trump’s order would exclude from automatic citizenship future children born in the U.S. whose mothers are not in the U.S. legally and whose fathers are not citizens or legal permanent residents. The order also would apply to children of some mothers in the country legally but temporarily, including foreign students.
The order, however, would not apply to current U.S. citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Trump had claimed on the campaign trail that mothers come to the U.S. illegally specifically to have “anchor babies” so the children can sponsor the parents, enabling them to become citizens. But the president’s contention ignores the fact that the children of undocumented immigrants cannot sponsor their parents until at least age 21, and it can take years after that for a parent to obtain citizenship.
Asked while signing executive orders at the White House Monday whether a court could find the birthright order unconstitutional, Trump told reporters: “Could be. I think we have good grounds, but you could be right. We’ll find out. It’s ridiculous…. People have wanted to do this for decades.”
The other 15 plaintiffs in the suit filed in federal District Court in Massachusetts are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington are the plaintiffs in the suit filed in Washington state.
For its part, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement: “The Church opposes the repeal of birthright citizenship because it would render innocent children stateless, depriving them of the ability to thrive in their communities and reach their full potential….
“The Church believes that a repeal of birthright citizenship would create a permanent underclass in U.S. society, contravening U.S. democratic tradition; undermining the human dignity of innocent children who would be punished though they did nothing wrong; and ultimately weakening the family.”