Pregnant women and rights groups sue Trump over ‘flagrantly illegal’ birthright citizenship executive order
21 January 2025, 23:11
Trump has been sued by pregnant women, attorneys general from 22 states, and civil rights groups over his ‘flagrantly unlawful’ order to end birthright citizenship.
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Several federal lawsuits have been launched against president Donald Trump over the order, which rewrites the US constitution by bringing an end to birthright citizenship, which has been in place for over a century.
Birthright citizenship refers to the 14th Amendment of the US constitution, which grants anyone born in the US automatic American citizenship.
One of the lawsuits is led by a pregnant woman who is due to give birth in March. She is in the country under temporary protected status, which means the executive order would make her baby ineligible for citizenship once it is born.
The woman, living in Massachusetts, is the lead plaintiff in the case, in which she is supported by the Brazilian Worker Center and La Colaborativa, represented by Lawyers for Civil Rights.
The groups have “numerous members who are either currently pregnant or planning to grow their families in the future, and whose children will be among the targeted citizens,” according to the legal complaint..
The federal lawsuit accuses Trump and members of his administration of a “flagrantly illegal” attempt to “strip citizenship from millions of Americans with a stroke of a pen.”
A statement on Lawyers for Civil Rights’ website said: “The move is overtly racist and threatens to harm millions of children and families across the country.
“More than a century of U.S. Supreme Court precedent makes crystal clear that the President does not decide who becomes a citizen at birth.”
It comes as Trump ordered his government to "finish" construction of the border wall between the US and Mexico, after the construction was halted due to a court injunction.
The complaint is one of several federal lawsuits against Trump in relation to his decision to revoke birthright citizenship, as civil rights groups and immigrants’ advocacy organisations were approached by many immigrant families and pregnant women afraid of their future.
Attorneys general from 22 states filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to block the newly inaugurated president’s “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
Trump's roughly 700-word executive order, issued late on Monday, amounts to the fulfilment of an idea he has talked about for years, but was considered inconceivable before.
But whether it succeeds is far from certain amid what is likely to be a lengthy legal battle over the president's immigration policies and a constitutional right to citizenship.
Attorneys general and immigrant rights advocates say the question of birthright citizenship is settled law and that while presidents have broad authority, they are not kings.
"The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period," New Jersey attorney general Matt Platkin said.
The White House said it is ready to face the states in court and called the lawsuits "nothing more than an extension of the Left's resistance".
"Radical Leftists can either choose to swim against the tide and reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can get on board and work with President Trump," White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said.
Connecticut attorney General William Tong, a US citizen by birthright and the nation's first Chinese American elected attorney general, said the lawsuit was personal for him.
"The 14th Amendment says what it means, and it means what it says - if you are born on American soil, you are an American. Period. Full stop," he said.
"There is no legitimate legal debate on this question. But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own."
