18 countries have sued to stop Trump’s executive order on citizenship rights

Attorneys general from 18 states sued President Trump on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the children of undocumented immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a civil war. – a long line of immigration policies by the Trump administration.

The complaint, filed in Massachusetts Federal Court, was joined by the cities of San Francisco and Washington, DC.

The states view Mr. Trump’s plan to limit citizenship by birth as “extraordinary and excessive,” said Matthew J. Platkin, New Jersey’s attorney general, who led the joint legal effort. to the attorneys general of California and Massachusetts. “The president is powerful, but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with his pen.”

On Monday, in the opening hours of his second term as president, Mr. Trump signed an executive order barring future children born to undocumented immigrants. paper. The order will extend to the children of some mothers in the country legally but temporarily, such as foreign students or tourists.

Mr. Trump’s executive order asserts that the children of such noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and therefore are not covered by the longstanding constitutional guarantee of the 14th Amendment. .

The order came before more than 100 years of legislation, when courts and the executive branch interpreted the 14th Amendment as guaranteeing citizenship to all babies born in the United States, regardless of racial status. -rules by their parents. The court recognized only a narrow exception for the children of diplomats who received diplomas.

But there are signs the court may split on this issue. Judge James C. Ho, who was nominated by Mr. Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, was more sympathetic to some of Mr. Trump’s arguments, comparing undocumented immigrants permission from the invading army. The same comparison was made by lawyers for the state of Texas and another statement by Mr. Trump that the illegal crossing of the southern border amounts to a “continuing attack.”

However, that high court does not hear cases from Massachusetts, and other courts cannot even consider considering the Trump administration’s arguments about constitutional interpretations without a new law from of Congress, said Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School. the way. He cites recent cases in which the Supreme Court ruled that the executive branch cannot resolve the most important political controversies on its own, known as “big questions.”

“If that’s true for student loans or the Covid-19 rules or whatever, you’d think it would be the same for citizenship,” he said. “The state is right and the courts will probably agree with them.”