WASHINGTON – A collection of advocacy groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit late Monday challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order to halt the automatic granting of citizenship to children born in the United States.
Trump signed his order to deny citizenship to children whose mothers were unlawfully present in the United States when they were born and the father wasn’t a citizen or legal permanent resident, or when the mother’s presence was lawful but temporary and the father wasn’t a citizen or lawful permanent resident. The order was part of a series that sought to bolster security along the southern border.
But legal experts said the order is in conflict with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that “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 ACLU lawsuit in New Hampshire seeks to block Trump from denying citizenship to those children.
“Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional − it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” Anthony Romero, ACLU executive director, said in a statement. “This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans.”
Trump and other Republicans have sought to end birthright citizenship because of a concern immigrants sometimes deliver children in the United States to gain a toehold to remain. Trump’s order, to take effect in the next 30 days, directed the Social Security Administration to no longer recognize the children as citizens and the State Department to stop issuing them passports.
The constitutional provision was ratified in 1868, after the Civil War, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1898.
“Birthright citizenship is a cornerstone of our democracy,” Theo Oshiro, co-executive director of the advocacy group Make the Road New York, said in a statement. “To deny their children the same basic rights as all other children born in the United States is an affront to basic values of fairness, equality, and inclusivity.”
