US President Donald Trump was sued over his bid to end automatic citizenship for children born in the US whose parents are unlawfully or temporarily in the country.
Immigration advocates on Monday evening filed a lawsuit in New Hampshire shortly after Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship. The change, set to take effect in 30 days, would upend more than a century of US policy and court interpretations of the US Constitution.
Trump campaigned on ending birthright citizenship, despite warnings that he would face stiff legal challenges. To defend the measure, US Department of Justice lawyers would have to convince courts to agree with a narrower reading of the constitution that has been promoted by some conservative legal scholars.
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The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, State Democracy Defenders Fund and Asian Law Caucus on behalf of immigrant support organizations, which say their members would have children ineligible for citizenship under the order.
Trump’s order would threaten children and their families “with a lifetime of exclusion from society and fear of deportation from the only country they have ever known,” the advocates wrote in the complaint. “But that is illegal. The Constitution and Congress — not President Trump — dictate who is entitled to full membership in American society.”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Asked by a reporter about the possibility of legal challenges earlier in the day, Trump replied, “We’ll see. We think we have very good grounds.”
Democratic state attorneys general released statements after Trump signed the order, saying they were considering legal action as well.
Trump’s decision to kick off his presidency with a controversial immigration action certain to face legal challenges echoes the early days of his first administration, when his order banning travel to the US from certain Muslim-majority countries caused instant chaos at airports and fierce court fights.
His new administration is already facing lawsuits that were filed while he was being sworn in challenging the government cost-cutting push being led by Elon Musk.
Trump’s executive order declares that babies born in US once the order kicks in would not be recognized by the federal government as citizens if the father is not a US citizen or lawful permanent resident and the mother is in the country illegally or is lawfully present on a temporary student, work or tourist visa.
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution — adopted in 1868 after the Civil War to clarify the status of formerly enslaved people — has long been read as giving citizenship to nearly all babies born on US soil.
It states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Trump’s order turns on what it means to be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Some conservatives have argued this language should be interpreted to exclude people who illegally enter the country. The more common interpretation of the phrase has been that even undocumented people are covered since they can be charged with crimes under federal and state laws and pay taxes, for example.
In 1898, the Supreme Court held that a man born in the US to Chinese parents who were permanent residents, but ineligible for citizenship was nevertheless entitled to full legal status.
In a 1982 decision in an unrelated case, the court pointed to a 1912 legal treatise to support the idea that for “jurisdiction” under the 14th Amendment, there was “no plausible distinction” between people who entered the country legally versus illegally, according to a Congressional Research Service report analyzing the birthright citizenship issue.
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