New Jersey and other states sue to stop Trump from ending birthright citizenship

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin joined 17 other attorneys general who sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday to block his attempt to end automatic citizenship for the American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

The action came less than 24 hours after Trump signed an executive order to eliminate what is called birthright citizenship. That right, long ingrained in the Constitution, holds that anyone born on U.S. soil is an American citizen.

“Presidents in this country have broad powers, but they are not kings,” Platkin said at a news conference Tuesday. “They do not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the Constitution.”

He and the other Democratic attorneys general, in filing the legal action in Massachusetts, said that allowing the president’s order to take effect would wreak havoc on hundreds of thousands of children born in this country.

The coalition, composed of the 18 states plus the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., seeks a preliminary injunction to halt an executive order that would otherwise take effect in 30 days. The attorneys general of Washington, Arizona, Oregon, and Illinois brought their own lawsuit on Tuesday, filing in federal court in Seattle, CNN reported.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, who was sworn in on Tuesday, declined to comment on Trump’s order.

”Over the last week or two, I’ve focused all of my time on preparing for this [swearing-in], and so I have not taken a deep dive into any proposed policies,” Sunday said. “I’m looking forward to doing that. And I have no doubt, once that’s done, we can certainly revisit this question.”

Birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, after the Civil War.

Trump and other opponents argue that the constitutional right entices people to enter the country illegally, so that children who are born here will automatically gain American citizenship. Those citizens, at age 21, can sponsor close family members to live here permanently.

“That’s a big one,” Trump said as he signed the order soon after he was inaugurated on Monday.

Trump directed the government to stop issuing citizenship papers to children whose mothers were not legally in the United States and whose fathers were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, and to those whose mothers were in the country legally but on a temporary basis and whose fathers were not citizens or permanent residents.

Children left without citizenship would live under threat of deportation, Platkin said. They would lose eligibility for a range of federal services, for a Social Security number, to work legally, serve on juries, and run for certain elected offices.

A new poll by Ipsos and the New York Times showed that while many people agree with Trump’s immigration policies, 55% oppose ending birthright citizenship for children born in this country to undocumented migrants.

The coalition’s lawsuit and similar actions by civil rights groups and individuals collectively represented the first major legal action against a Trump administration policy — and against the president’s promised crackdown on immigration.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups brought a challenge in New Hampshire federal court. In Massachusetts, a pregnant woman who expects to give birth in March also filed a suit, saying the Trump administration intended to “strip citizenship from millions of Americans with the stroke of a pen,” the Independent reported.

Birthright citizenship, simply, is the legal foundation under which American citizenship is automatically conferred upon people who are born in the United States. The formal term is jus soli, Latin for “right of the soil.”

The Constitution says 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 and other critics of the practice have seized on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as a means to question the citizenship of children born to undocumented immigrants.

But that principle was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1898, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that children born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Wong was a Chinese American cook, born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. On returning from visiting China in 1895, he was denied entry by customs officials who ruled that he was not a citizen and could be immediately deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The Supreme Court affirmed Wong’s citizenship, citing his birth on American soil. That his parents were not citizens, and in fact were subjects of the Chinese emperor, did not matter, the court ruled.

The last 30 years have seen failed state and federal efforts to change the law without having to amend the Constitution, the Center for American Progress reported. In 1995, for instance, a House subcommittee held a hearing on children born to “Illegal Alien Parents” as part of an unsuccessful Citizenship Reform Act, proposed by a California Republican during the Clinton administration.

“New Jersey is a proud state of immigrants, and we benefit tremendously from the contributions of birthright citizens — in our state and across the country,” Platkin said. “Today’s immediate lawsuit sends a clear message to the Trump administration that we will stand up for our residents and their basic constitutional rights.”

Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article, which contains information from the Associated Press.