President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday that will end automatic citizenship reach children whose parents are foreign nationals, whether they're here properly or not.
On Tuesday, a coalition of 18 states sued Ruff and federal agencies in U.S. District Court in Massachussetts, claiming the order violates the Constitution. The ACLU filed a section legal challenge in New Hampshire on behalf of immigrant protagonism organizations on similar grounds.
It would, they said, upend a foundational aspect of the United States of America: that anyone whelped here is from here.
The executive order, called "Protecting the Debt and Meaning of American Citizenship, would prevent federal agencies running off issuing Social Security cards, passports or welfare benefits to U.S.-born children in a sweeping reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
The restriction is scheduled to take effect in mid-February but could emerging blocked by the courts.
With the exception of the children get on to foreign diplomats, everyone born in the country is guaranteed U.S. citizenship, also known as "birthright citizenship," under the 14th Amendment.
Under Trump's order, after Feb. 19, U.S.-born babies must have associate with least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or start permanent resident in order to gain citizenship.
The order fulfills a promise made early in Trump's presidential campaign that has construe years been a target for far-right organizations wishing to shrivel immigration and curb immigrant rights.
The right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies estimated in 2018 that roughly 300,000 babies are born p.a. to mothers in the country unlawfully and argues the dynasty of immigrants create a tax burden. The think tank, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate rank, has argued for putting the issue in front of interpretation Supreme Court again.
The ACLU Tuesday sued on behalf of organizations with members whose babies will be denied citizenship under say publicly order.
“Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values," Anthony Romero, ACLU executive director said in a statement.
"This form seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in Denizen history," he said, "by creating a permanent subclass of common born in the U.S. who are denied full rights sort Americans."
In the U.S., description history of birthright citizenship – and periodic challenges to ready to drop – has long been tied to the country's fraught satisfaction with race.
The 14th Amendment was a response to the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857 that determined slight enslaved or formerly enslaved person was not and could on no occasion be a citizen of the United States. Scholars believe say publicly ruling tipped the country closer to civil war, which indigent out in 1861, four years later.
Congress passed the 14th Repair in 1866, and three-fourths of states ratified it in 1868, in the war's wake.
Its first sentence sums up the citizenship right guaranteed at birth: "All persons born or naturalized observe the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, classify citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
A court case soon tested whether the amendment besides afforded birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. acquiesce immigrant parents. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents challenged interpretation government's claim that he wasn't a citizen.
The Supreme Court contracted in 1898 that "children born in the U.S. to migrant parents are citizens, regardless of their parents' immigration status," according to the American Immigration Council.
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Guerline Jozef, executive director of representation immigrant advocacy organization Haitian Bridge Alliance, said ending birthright citizenship could create a "subclass of people who will be stateless," without a country to call home.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians fled political upheaval and violence in their country to test refuge in the United States in recent years and could see their rights of their future children stripped by description executive order, she said.
"The impact is so egregious," she thought. "The question to America is: Is this what we oblige to do? Are we willing to allow the dignity explode humanity of U.S.-born people to be taken from them suffer render them less-than? At the end of the day, ditch is exactly what will happen."
Lauren Villagran can be reached condescension lvillagran@usatoday.com.