Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Move Faces Legal Challenges

Wed Jan 22 2025
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Key points

  • 22 States sue to stop Trump’s birthright citizenship order
  • Trump’s order seeks to roll back birthright citizenship in US
  • 14th Amendment says anyone born in US is considered a citizen

ISLAMABAD:  Dozens of US states and civil rights groups have filed lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to roll back birthright citizenship in the United States (US).

According to the Associated Press (AP), Attorneys general from 22 states sued Tuesday to block Trump’s move to end a century-old immigration practice known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that US-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status.

Reuters reported that immigrant and civil rights groups have also filed lawsuits challenging the executive order of Trump.

Trump’s order

AP reported that Trump’s order asserts that the children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the US. It excludes the following people from automatic citizenship: those whose mothers were not legally in the US and whose fathers were not US nationals or lawful permanent residents, and people whose mothers were in the country legally but on a temporary basis and whose fathers were not citizens or legal permanent residents.

The lawsuits were filed in federal court in Massachusetts and New Hampshire late on Monday ahead of expected legal challenges by several Democratic attorneys general in states including Connecticut and California.

A violation of right

Both lawsuits argue that the executive order violated the right enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen, according to Reuters.

The lawsuits cite the US Supreme Court’s 1898 ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a decision holding that children born in the US to non-citizen parents are entitled to US citizenship.

What is birthright citizenship?

“All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,” reads the document, which was ratified in 1868 as the postbellum US sought to knit itself back together, according to AFP.

Gil Guerra, an immigration policy analyst at US political think tank the Niskanen Center, told AFP that the notion of birthright citizenship is a defining characteristic of the American experiment.

While some legal experts think Trump’s efforts will come unstuck, a 6-3 conservative majority — three of whom were appointed by Trump — may have different ideas.

“I don’t think it’s inconceivable (that it will be upheld), which is what I would have said in 2019,” Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia told The New York Times.

Reuters reported that the White House did not immediately respond to a request for remarks. With some input from AFP.

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