DELAWARE - Just one day after President Trump was sworn back into office some of his day-one executive orders are being challenged in court. Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings announced that Delaware, along with 17 other states, has filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The states argue that the order violates the constitutional rights of children born in the United States.
“This executive order flies in the face of both our nation’s immigrant heritage and the Constitution,” said Jennings. “The Constitution is unambiguous, and we are taking action to defend the rights of American children and the institutions that uphold them.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, seeks to block the executive order on the grounds that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. While the legal matter is sorted out those same states are asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the order’s implementation.
Birthright citizenship, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, has been challenged and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on at least two separate occasions in the past. For Delaware specifically Attorney General Jennings claims that this change would deny citizenship to around 700 children born in the first state every year.
Jurisdictions joining the lawsuit include New Jersey, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington, DC, and San Francisco.
The states maintain that the order is unconstitutional and incompatible with existing laws and Supreme Court precedent.