California, a coalition of other states and the city of San Francisco sued the federal government Tuesday over President Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship via executive order — calling it an unconstitutional directive that flies in the face of long-standing legal precedent.
“I have one message for President Trump: I’ll see you in court,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said during a morning news conference — calling the order “unconstitutional and quite frankly un-American.”
The lawsuit asks the court to block Trump’s order from taking effect — which it is meant to do in less than 30 days — and to “ensure that the rights of American-born children impacted by this order remain in effect while litigation proceeds,” Bonta said. “The president has overstepped his authority by a mile with this order, and we will hold him accountable.”
Bonta said Trump’s order would affect more than 20,000 babies born in California each year. He noted the state is home to some 11 million immigrants, who make up almost 30% of the state’s population and a third of its taxpaying workers.
“I want to be clear that this isn’t some theoretical legal disagreement I have with the president,” he said. “If allowed to stand, this order would endanger thousands of U. S. citizens who will be born in the next year — real children and families just trying to live their lives at peace.”
California is leading the litigation along with Massachusetts and New Jersey, with the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts, Bonta said. Also joining those states and San Francisco as plaintiffs are the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit is a first for California against the new Trump administration, but likely not the last. The state sued the first Trump administration more than 100 times — often successfully — and Bonta said his office was reviewing other orders by Trump and considering additional litigation.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution — ratified in 1868 — states 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.”
In addition to the 14th Amendment, Bonta noted that the Supreme Court later affirmed the right in 1898, after a San Francisco-born Chinese American named Wong Kim Ark sued to have his own citizenship recognized. Congress also codified birthright citizenship in the Immigration and Nationality Act, the states argue in their lawsuit — which calls Trump’s order an “executive fiat.”
Children of foreign diplomats are considered a narrow exception to the rule, but children of undocumented immigrants have not historically been excluded.
Trump has lambasted birthright citizenship, saying it acts as a magnet for immigrant women to illegally cross into the United States in order to have a child here — and to then use that child’s citizenship as a means of gaining legal status in the country themselves.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised that he would immediately end birthright citizenship by advising federal agencies that they had been misinterpreting U.S. law for years.
Trump’s order, one of many he signed following his inauguration Monday, did just that, arguing that the 14th Amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” and “has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”
That includes a child born in the United States when their mother was “unlawfully present in the United States” or had “lawful but temporary” status in the country, such as through a visa waiver program or under a student or tourist visa, and their father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
The order said that moving forward, no federal agency may issue documents recognizing U.S. citizenship to such children. It said the order shall apply to any child born within the United States after 30 days from Monday. He ordered all federal agencies — including in Homeland Security and Social Security — to respond with guidance on how it would implement the order within 30 days.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a separate lawsuit challenging the same order late Monday, with executive director Anthony D. Romero calling it “unconstitutional” and “a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values.”
“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,” Romero said. “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.”
Bonta said he has been thinking about how to protect immigrant families in California for months, that he was not surprised by Trump’s decision to go after immigrant children on his first day in office, and that he is encouraged by the coalition that has come together to fight back.
“I feel fantastic about the fact that we have like-minded other states who are in this fight, committed to the rule of law, committed to uplifting constitutional rights and protecting them from the attacks of a president who is violating the law,” Bonta said. “This moment calls all of us into action and into service — and it means that we need to stand up together and support one another.”
San Francisco City Atty. David Chiu, who joined Bonta at the news conference, called Trump’s order a “tragedy” that must be stopped.
“Immigrants have made our country great, are crucial to our economic success, are central to our nation’s social and cultural fabric,” he said.
Immigrant advocates also joined Bonta and Chiu in denouncing Trump’s order, including Larry Yee, a longtime community activist and child of immigrants.
Yee, a member of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Assn. in San Francisco, said the organization fought on Ark’s behalf more than 120 years ago, and isn’t about to give up defending birthright citizenship now.
“Whatever Trump says, we need to fight it and fight it to the max,” Yee said. “Birthright is our right. It’s our civil right. It’s our economic right. And we’ll continue to fight this.”
