President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order attempting to redefine birthright citizenship drew an immediate lawsuit from immigrants’ rights groups, including the ACLU of Massachusetts.
The order aims to set new national policy by stating that U.S. government agencies shall not issue documents recognizing U.S. citizenship, or accept documents issued by state, local, or other governments or authorities purporting to recognize U.S. citizenship, to people under certain circumstances.
According to the order, the circumstances are when the person’s mother was unlawfully present in the U.S. and the person’s father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the person’s birth, or when the person’s mother’s presence in the U.S. was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the person’s birth.
The order quotes the U.S. Constitution 14th Amendment as stating: “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.” It goes on to assert that the 14th Amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States” and “has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ ”
The Jan. 20 order is designed to apply only to relevant individuals born in the U.S. after 30 days from the date of the order.
The federal lawsuit filed in New Hampshire was announced hours after the Inauguration Day executive order was introduced and alleges that the Trump administration is “flouting the Constitution’s dictates, congressional intent, and longstanding Supreme Court precedent.”
“Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is. 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.”
(Copyright (c) 2024 State House News Service.