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California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, filed a lawsuit Tuesday to challenge the Trump administration's unconstitutional executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, all children born on American soil are automatically granted American citizenship and the rights and privileges that go with it.
In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this right in a case brought by Wong Kim Ark, a Chinese-American man born in San Francisco who had been denied his reentry rights after traveling abroad.
In today’s lawsuit, 18 state attorneys general, led by California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, argue that President Trump’s unprecedented executive order violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and should be immediately blocked from taking effect while litigation proceeds.
“The President’s executive order attempting to rescind birthright citizenship is blatantly unconstitutional and, frankly, un-American,” said Attorney General Bonta.
“As the home of Wong Kim Ark, a San Francisco native who successfully fought to have his U.S. citizenship recognized, California condemns the president’s attempts to erase history and ignore 125 years of Supreme Court precedent. We are asking the court to immediately block this order from going into effect and ensure that the rights of American-born children affected by this order remain in place while litigation is underway. The president has completely exceeded his authority with this order, and we will hold him accountable.”
The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly promises 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.”
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this constitutional right in 1898, when a Chinese-American man born in San Francisco was denied entry to the United States after visiting relatives in China on the grounds that he was not a citizen.
In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court held that children born in the United States, including those of immigrants, could not be denied citizenship.
Within hours of taking office, the president issued an executive order that ignored the U.S. Constitution and this long-established precedent.
The order directs federal agencies to prospectively deny citizenship rights to children born in the United States to parents who are not legal residents, directs the Social Security Administration and the Department of State, respectively, to stop issuing Social Security numbers and U.S. passports to such children, and directs all federal agencies to treat such children as if they were not entitled to any privileges, rights, or benefits reserved by law to persons who are U.S. citizens.
If the order is allowed to stand, it would deprive tens of thousands of children born each year of their ability to be full and fair participants in American society as legitimate citizens, with all the benefits and privileges that come with it, the lawsuit says.
In turn, it points out that these children would lose their most basic rights and would be forced to live under the threat of deportation, they would lose eligibility for a wide range of federal benefit programs, as well as their ability to obtain a Social Security number and, as they grow older, to work legally, they would also lose their right to vote, to serve on juries and to run for certain offices.
The executive order would also directly harm California and other states, Bonta noted, by jeopardizing federal funding for vital programs they administer, such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, which are conditioned on the citizenship and immigration status of the children they serve.
In addition, he said, states would be required — with little notice and at considerable cost — to immediately begin modifying the way they operate and administer their benefit programs to account for this change by Feb. 19, when the order takes effect.
In documents filed today, the attorneys general argue that President Trump's executive order is a flagrant violation of the Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act and would cause irreparable harm to states and their residents.
The attorneys general are therefore seeking a nationwide preliminary injunction to prevent the denial of the constitutional rights of tens of thousands of babies born each year in the U.S. who otherwise would have been, and should be, citizens, including approximately 24,500 children born in California annually, and the disruption of vital public health programs and other federal benefits.
Attorney General Bonta is joined by the attorneys general of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, along with the city of San Francisco.
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