Immigrant rights groups, ACLU sue Trump administration over birthright citizenship order

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KTVU) - Immigrants’ rights advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Asian Law Caucus, on Monday sued the Trump administration over its executive order that seeks to strip certain babies born in the United States of their birthright citizenship.

Groups vow to fight Trump's order 

Why you should care:

Complementing that suit, California Attorney General Bonta will speak in San Francisco on Tuesday about how this type of citizenship is a "right expressly guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution." 

"It is disappointing, but unfortunately unsurprising," Bonta said, "that the president chose to disregard the constitution and attempt to invalidate this right as one of his first acts in office."

Bonta said that being home to more immigrants than any other state in the country, California has a vested interest in ensuring that the federal government recognizes the fundamental rights of the children of immigrants who are born in the state. 

Bonta and the immigrant rights groups vowed to fight one of Donald Trump's first moves in the Oval Office, when he signed an order that even conservative legal scholars say a president cannot do with a stroke of a pen.

Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution

Big picture view:

Birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution under the 14th Amendment – and has been for 150 years. 

"The Supreme Court said that the 14th Amendment means what it says: All persons born in the United States or naturalized are US citizens," said John Travsvina, former ICE legal advisor and USF Law School Dean. "S0 125 years later, trying to change that definition, it needs to go back to the courts, or it needs to go through the constitutional amendment process." 

What the lawsuit says

The other side:

The current case filed in U.S. District Court for the District Court of New Hampshire was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, the Asian Law Caucus, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and the Legal Defense Fund on behalf of organizations with members whose babies born on U.S. soil will be denied citizenship under the order, including New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support, League of United Latin American Citizens and Make the Road New York. 

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

"Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values," Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said in a statement. "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 U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans. 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." 

What Trump says

What they're saying:

Giving babies automatic citizenship is not the practice of every country, and Trump and his supporters have argued that the system is being abused and that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen.

During an interview on NBC’s "Meet the Press" before he was sworn into office, Trump said: "We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous." 

Trump and other opponents of birthright citizenship have argued that it creates an incentive for people to come to the U.S. illegally or take part in "birth tourism," in which pregnant women enter the U.S. specifically to give birth so their children can have citizenship before returning to their home countries.

"Simply crossing the border and having a child should not entitle anyone to citizenship," said Eric Ruark, director of research for NumbersUSA, which argues for reducing immigration. The organization supports changes that would require at least one parent to be a permanent legal resident or a U.S. citizen for their children to automatically get citizenship.

Key case stems from San Francisco

Local perspective:

A key case in the history of birthright citizenship came in 1898 in San Francisco.

That's when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the states. The federal government had tried to deny him reentry into the country after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

But some have argued that the 1898 case clearly applied to children born of parents who are both legal immigrants to America, but that it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status or, for example, who come for a short-term like a tourist visa.

Changing the U.S. Constitution would require two thirds of both the House and the Senate. And ¾ of the nation's state legislatures would need to ratify any change. 

The Source

• ACLU lawsuit, President Trump executive order, interviews with legal scholars, California AG Rob Bonta news conference, Associated Press.