The remaining guardrails of democracy are holding strong—for now. Democrats have wasted no time challenging Donald Trump’s attempt to thwart birthright citizenship during his signing of ominous executive orders on his first day in office.
A group of Democratic attorneys general announced Tuesday that it would legally challenge Trump’s birthright citizenship ban, asserting it as unconstitutional.
The group cited the 14th Amendment, which 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 group included attorneys general of Arizona, Washington, Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, along with the District of Columbia and San Francisco.
The group cites that it brings this action “to protect their states, localities, and residents from the President’s flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
Since 2018, Trump has been pushing to end birthright citizenship through executive order. But even an executive order can’t overrule the Constitution, and Congress can’t pass nor implement an unconstitutional bill. Rather, a constitutional amendment, which requires 38 of the 50 states to ratify, is needed to amend the Constitution.
“President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship is a direct attack on the Constitution and the fundamental rights it guarantees to every child born on American soil,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said. “The Fourteenth Amendment is clear: citizenship is not a privilege to be granted or revoked by political whim—it is a right enshrined in the very fabric of our nation. We will not stand by as this administration attempts.”
“On day one, President Trump moved to use executive power to effectively amend the Constitution in an unprecedented, but not unexpected manner,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “With the exception of indigenous peoples and the descendants of enslaved peoples, the United States is a nation of descendants of immigrants, many of whom risked their lives for the promise of a better life. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no matter your family’s country of origin, if you are born here, this is your home, this is your country.”
“I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and this executive order is plainly unconstitutional. Babies born here in Vermont have a constitutional right to be embraced as Vermonters and Americans,” Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark said.
Meanwhile, just hours into his presidency, Trump was hit with numerous lawsuits from groups like American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, and State Democracy Defenders Fund for his unconstitutional executive order and for the Department of Government Efficiency’s violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972.
It’s unclear whether Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship will reach the Supreme Court. But if it does, some legal experts seem to think that the conservative-leaning court would strike it down.
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