Image source, Reuters
- Author, Drafting
- Author’s title, BBC News World
It is the first appeal in what will likely be a long legal fight over the immigration policy of the new Donald Trump administration.
Attorneys general from 22 U.S. states filed lawsuits to block the executive order, signed by the president shortly after his inauguration on Monday, to end birthright citizenship.
This is a centuries-old immigration practice that derives from the 14th amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees that children born in the United States will be citizens regardless of the immigration status of their parents.
Trump’s order, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” stipulates that the administration will no longer recognize automatic citizenship for children born on American soil to immigrant parents who are in the country illegally, as long as when neither parent is a US citizen or legal permanent resident.
In his first term, Trump threatened to take similar measures, but did not carry them out.
“It violates constitutional rights”
The first lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts by a coalition of 18 states including New Jersey, New York and California, alleges that Trump’s executive order violates the constitutional rights of thousands of children.
He adds that this “imposes undue costs” on local jurisdictions that would lose federal funding linked to children’s health insurance.
Image source, EPA
The lawsuit accuses Trump of attempting to eliminate a “long-standing and well-established constitutional principle.”
“The president has no authority to rewrite or repeal a constitutional amendment or a duly enacted law. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives U.S. citizenship at birth,” the lawsuit states.
The District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco also joined this lawsuit.
Another group of four states – Arizona, Oregon, Illinois and Washington – filed a separate lawsuit in Seattle.
Several civil rights and legal organizations also filed legal challenges in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, “on behalf of parents whose children would be ineligible for citizenship” under Trump’s executive order.
Democratic attorneys general and immigrant rights advocates say the issue of birthright citizenship is settled law and that while presidents have broad authority, they are “not kings.”
“For more than 150 years, our country has followed the same basic rule: Babies born in this country are American citizens,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said at a news conference Tuesday.
“(Trump) has the right to enact policy that he believes is right for the country,” but “this is an extreme and unprecedented act,” Platkin said. “This is not just an attack on the law. It is an attack on the very essence of this nation.”
“The presidents of this country have vast power. But they are not kings,” Platkin said.
He added: “The president cannot, with the stroke of a pen, erase the 14th Amendment from existence. Period.”
For her part, New York Attorney General Letitia James said that Trump’s measure “is not only unconstitutional, it is deeply dangerous.”
Long legal battle
Image source, Getty Images
The series of legal challenges indicates that Trump’s effort will likely face a lengthy legal battle and could be stalled in court, preventing it from taking effect next month as planned.
Most legal scholars agree that the president cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.
“He is doing something that is going to upset a lot of people, but ultimately this will be decided by the courts,” Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, told the BBC.
“This is not something he can decide on his own.”
But the White House has indicated it is ready to take on the states in court, calling the lawsuits “nothing more than an extension of the left’s resistance.”
“Radical leftists can choose to swim against the tide and reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can join in and work with President Trump,” said White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields.
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