MONROVIA – A concerning spectacle bordering rights of immigrants in the United States, certainly including some Liberians, is taking place as the newly sworn-in president of that country, Donald Trump, has revoked birthright citizenship.
But a coalition of Democratic attorneys general on Tuesday are not letting the Trump posturing laying down, filing a lawsuit in Massachusetts seeking to block the president’s attempt to revoke the right to automatic birthright citizenship.
Trump on Monday signed an executive order that purports to limit birthright citizenship to people who have at least one parent who is a United States citizen or a permanent resident.
The proposal faces an uphill battle and strong opposition not just from the 19 Democratic attorneys general, including officials from New Jersey, California, New York, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, but also civil rights groups, who have already filed their own lawsuit.
Senators have received affidavit containing new allegations against Pete Hegseth, who denies the claims.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said: “This is a war on American families waged by a president with zero respect for our Constitution. We have sued, and I have every confidence we will win.”
The new lawsuit calls Trump’s plan a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands [of] American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
Trump’s proposal seeks to “abrogate this well-established and longstanding constitutional principle by executive fiat,” the lawsuit says.
It has long been accepted that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees the right to birthright citizenship for anyone born in the United States, with the exception of the children of diplomats.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment says.
Trump’s proposal does not go into effect for a month, giving courts ample time to block it before then.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts, a district that is within the jurisdiction of an appeals court dominated by Democratic-appointed judges.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1898, in a case called United States v. Wong Kim Ark, that a man born in San Francisco to parents who were both from China was a U.S. citizen.
Many legal experts believe that the court, despite having a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump-appointed justices, would likely reject the administration’s novel interpretation of the law.
It can be recalled President Trump on day one of his incumbency kick-started the process to revoke birthright citizenship after years of proposing the constitutional change as a way to reduce undocumented immigration.
Birthright citizenship, meaning that someone born within the U.S. or its the United States territories is automatically a U.S. citizen, is currently protected by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The clause often referred to 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.”
Trump wants to reinterpret the phrasing “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to mean that the federal government would not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status, incoming White House officials told reporters on a call on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss upcoming actions.
This action is now facing immediate legal challenges.
Over the last several decades, the number of babies born to parents without legal status to be in the U.S. has dropped.
The Pew Research Center estimated that 1.3 million U.S.-born adults are children of unauthorized immigrants, according to 2022 data, the latest available.
But immigrant rights advocates said the proposed move would affect the next generation of children. An estimated 4.7 million children would have one or both parents without legal status by 2050 under current policy, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute.
“Ending birthright citizenship would be a really huge change in how we handle immigration and the right to belong in the United States,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, adding that this law contributes to the economic and educational success rates of immigrants’ children.
“Children of immigrants have had that sense of belonging and full rights in the United States that they’ve been able to harness to really support their integration.”
A growing coalition of conservatives have begun promoting a different interpretation of the 14th Amendment in an effort to limit the number of migrants without legal status in the country.
During his first term, Trump’s legal advisers encouraged his ability to unilaterally challenge it. In 2020, Trump’s State Department issued a rule change aimed at reducing the practice of traveling to the U.S. with the specific purpose of giving birth, and at the border pregnant women were removed from a list of “vulnerable” people.
During his first presidential run in 2015, Trump also promised to end birthright citizenship and in 2018, he said he would issue an executive order. But that order never came to fruition.
Immigration re-emerged as a top issue as he campaigned during the 2024 election, with Trump vowing to voters that he would end birthright citizenship. He reiterated that goal during his first cable TV interview with NBC’s Meet the Press after the election.
Immigrant rights groups argue that any effort to repeal birthright citizenship would have a detrimental effect on communities, local economies and families’ wellbeing as families leave, or live in fear that their future children may not be authorized.
“Blocking people from citizenship and even U.S. born children from citizenship could really threaten that integration and threaten how much children of immigrants can contribute to the country,” Gelatt said.
During the 2023 GOP primary, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and then-candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and others also called for an end to birthright citizenship for the children of parents without legal status.
Lawmakers have also debated the issue. In the last Congress, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced legislation to limit birthright citizenship and in 2015 the House Judiciary committee held a hearing on the matter.
Marielena Hincapie, distinguished immigration visiting scholar at Cornell Law School, said the notion that a president could be responsible for removing birthright citizenship is concerning because that authority may not belong there. Her comments suggest legal challenges are likely.
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