Coalition of 20 US Attorneys General Defend Birthright Citizenship

WASHINGTON, DC – A coalition of 20 Attorneys General says they “stand together” to defend the birthright citizenship as the United States Supreme Court Thursday heard oral arguments defending the nationwide injunction against President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.

“We were proud to stand together to defend birthright citizenship and the rule of law at the US Supreme Court, “said the coalition in a joint statement, noting that “for 127 years, the law has been clear: if you are born in this country, you are a citizen of the United States.

“Administrations of both parties have consistently respected that right ever since. As every court to have considered the policy agrees, the president’s attempt to end birthright citizenship is patently unconstitutional.

“The Trump administration’s argument before the Supreme Court , that the president should be permitted to strip American citizenship from people based solely on the state in which they happen to be born, would upend settled law and produce widespread chaos and disruption,” they said in their statement.

The Attorneys General said Trump  cannot rewrite the Constitution and contradict the Supreme Court’s own holdings “with the stroke of a pen.”

In January, immigrants’ rights advocates sued the Trump administration over its executive order that seeks to strip certain babies born in the United States of their US citizenship.

The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), State Democracy Defenders Fund and Legal Defense Fund on behalf of organizations with members whose babies born on US soil will be denied citizenship under the order.

They included New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support; League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); and Make the Road New York, an immigration advocacy with over 28,000 members.

The lawsuit charges the Trump administration with flouting the US Constitution’s dictates, congressional intent and longstanding US Supreme Court precedent.

“Denying citizenship to US-born children is not only unconstitutional; It’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is. This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the US who are denied full rights as Americans,” he added.

“We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration’s overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail,” Romero said.

The ACLU said Birthright citizenship is the principle that every baby born in the United States is a US citizen and that the executive order will also stigmatize and send a message of exclusion not only to children directly impacted by the order, but to many others who will have their citizenship questioned because of their race or who their parents are.

New York Attorney General, Letitia James and the coalition are seeking to invalidate the Executive Order and stop any actions taken to implement it.

The states request immediate relief to prevent the Executive Order from taking effect through a Preliminary Injunction filed with the court.

“If allowed to stand, the Executive Order would mean, for the first time since the 14th amendment was adopted in 1868, babies born in New York and around the country, who would have been citizens, will no longer be entitled to citizenship under federal law,” James said.

Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke also condemned several executive orders issued by Trump, including his decree to end birthright citizenship.

“With a power no president has ever known before, he has precisely spelled out how he plans to govern in the years to come – and that is by decree,” said Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York.

“I was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn 60 years ago to two Jamaican immigrants. My citizenship is my birthright. If Donald Trump wants to tell me, my family, my neighbors in Brooklyn and across New York and around the United States that our citizenship is illegitimate, and we are not proper Americans, then he should expect to hear from the tens of millions of Americans he just disgraced.

“We are witnessing a shameless abuse of power, and I can say with certainty the immigrant community will not stand by as it progresses further. We will not yield to Mr. Trump’s impropriety, illegality and cruelty. He will not intimidate us,”  Clarke added.