US President Donald Trump has been sued by a coalition of Democratic-leaning states and civil rights groups over his plan to end birthright citizenship in the United States. Several separate lawsuits came within hours of Trump taking office and immediately issuing a raft of executive orders that he hopes will reshape US immigration.
The first two cases were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organizations and a pregnant mother just hours after Trump signed the executive order, setting off the first major court battle of his administration.
Two other lawsuits were brought in federal courts in Boston and Seattle by 22 Democratic-led states along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco. The cases claimed that the President had overstepped his authority and violated the U.S. Constitution by trying to eliminate the automatic grant of citizenship to anyone born on American soil.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s office said if Trump’s order is upheld, more than 150,000 babies born annually in the United States would be denied citizenship rights for the first time.
“President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights,” he said in a statement.
What is birthright citizenship?
Anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen at birth, derived from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment which was added to the US Constitution in 1868.
The 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.” The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 also defines citizens and includes similar language.
Four years after the American Civil War, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1868 to overturn the Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, which had denied basic rights to African Americans. The previous decision held that enslaved people were not American citizens and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts.
The US Supreme Court confirmed that birthright citizenship applies to children of immigrants in the 1898 decision in Wong Kim Ark v. United States. Wong, who was born in the US to Chinese immigrants, was denied re-entry when he returned to the US from a trip to China. Wong successfully argued that because he was born in the US, his parents’ immigration status did not affect the application of the 14th Amendment in his case.
The case confirmed that regardless of race or the immigration status of one’s parents, all children born in the United States were entitled to all the rights provided by citizenship.
However, the Supreme Court has not addressed whether the Citizenship Clause applies to US-born children of people who are in the United States illegally.
What does Trump’s executive order say?
Donald Trump’s order declaring that individuals born in the United States are not entitled to automatic citizenship if the mother was in the country illegally and the father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. It also declared that citizenship would be denied to those whose mothers were in the United States legally but temporarily, such as on student or tourist visas, and whose fathers were not citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Trump has complained about foreign women coming to the United States for the purpose of giving birth to their children and granting them American citizenship.
According to US Department of Homeland Security estimates, there were an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US in January 2022, a figure now estimated by some analysts at 13 million to 14 million. Their US-born children are considered suitable for US citizenship by the government.
The states said in the lawsuits that losing citizenship would prevent these individuals from gaining access to federal programs like Medicaid health insurance and from working or voting legally when they grow up.
Could Trump’s order overturn birthright citizenship?
According to legal experts, birthright citizenship cannot be abolished by an executive order as it is bound to end in litigation.
“He’s doing something that will upset a lot of people, but ultimately that will be decided by the courts…It’s not something he can decide on his own,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and professor at the University of Virginia Law School. ” According to a BBC report, this was said.
Mr. Prakash said that although Trump could order employees of federal agencies to take a more narrow interpretation of citizenship, that would open up legal challenges to people whose citizenship is denied. This could lead to a lengthy court battle that will ultimately end up in the US Supreme Court.
A constitutional amendment could eliminate birthright citizenship, but it would also require a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and the approval of three-quarters of the US states. Republicans have a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate and a 220 to 215 majority in the House, meaning America’s oldest party (GOP) does not have the necessary numbers in either chamber.
Cases against Trump’s order
Three of the four lawsuits against Trump’s order were filed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. According to a Reuters report, any decisions by judges in those New England states will be reviewed by the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals, the only federal appeals court whose active judges are all Democratic appointees.
The four states filed a separate case in Washington state, over which the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction. U.S. District Judge John Coughnor in Seattle has scheduled a hearing for Thursday on whether he should issue a temporary restraining order to prevent Trump from enforcing the order.
A fifth lawsuit was filed in federal court in Maryland by a group of pregnant women and immigrant rights groups, including CASA.
Various lawsuits argue that Trump’s executive order violates the right enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides that any person born in the United States is considered a citizen.
The complaints cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to U.S. citizenship. The plaintiffs challenging the order also include a woman living in Massachusetts, identified only as “O. Doe,” who is in the country through Temporary Protected Status and is due to give birth in March. Is.
Temporary Protected Status is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events and currently covers more than 1 million people from 17 countries.
Several other lawsuits challenging aspects of Trump’s other early executive actions are also pending.
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal government employees in 37 agencies and departments, filed a lawsuit late Monday challenging the order signed by Trump, allowing thousands of federal agency employees to be fired and replaced. It became easier to appoint political loyalists.
