Boston (AP) — On Friday, a federal court in Boston announced that he would consider a request from 18 state attorneys general to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order that would deny birthright citizenship to children of unlawfully present parents.
This week, the third federal judge to hear arguments in cases attempting to overturn the order was U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin. Sorokin, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, was not anticipated to make a ruling on the motion on Friday, but it was unclear when he would do so.
The cities of San Francisco and Washington, as well as the state attorneys general, requested that Sorokin grant a preliminary injunction.
Before the hearing, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell told reporters, “Under the protections of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, millions of Americans who were born to immigrant parents and hundreds of millions can trace their citizenship back to immigrant ancestors — ancestors who built our country and fuelled our economy.” Campbell was joined by attorneys general from Connecticut and New Jersey. “The president cannot use a fake executive order or a sharpie to alter the Constitution.”
Earlier in the week, two other federal judges blocked Trump’s order. In one case, a judge in Maryland paused the order nationwide in a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights advocacy groups and a few pregnant women. In another lawsuit, a judge in Seattle criticised the administration’s handling of the Constitution, claiming that Trump was attempting to alter it through an executive order.
On Monday, a federal judge in New Hampshire will hear a second challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Plaintiffs in the Boston case contend that Trump lacks the authority to issue the order, calling it a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage,” and that the concept of birthright citizenship is “enshrined in the Constitution.”
They also claim that states that depend on federal assistance to “provide essential services”—such as foster care, health care for low-income children, and “early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities”—would lose that cash as a result of Trump’s order.
Shankar Duraiswamy, the deputy solicitor general for New Jersey, informed the court that the issue concerned children born in the United States.
“The executive branch can take away their constitutional rights to equal protection, due process, and the First Amendment, but they cannot take away their constitutional rights to birthright citizenship because they think it will discourage illegal entry.”
The Department of Justice’s Eric Hamilton argued that the states contesting the executive order were “misreading” the 14th Amendment.
According to the Trump administration, children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US and, as a result, are not eligible for citizenship.
For a large portion of the hearing, Sorokin questioned the order’s possible effects, such as whether it would apply to those who had already been granted birthright citizenship and the practicalities of locating anyone affected by the executive order.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in 1868 following the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling—which determined that Scott, an enslaved man, was not a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was illegal—is at the centre of all the lawsuits.
According to the Trump administration, children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US and, as a result, are not eligible for citizenship.
State attorneys have maintained that it does, and the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged this since the amendment’s ratification, most notably in a ruling from 1898. Children born on foreign ships, to members of sovereign Native American tribes, to diplomats who have allegiance to another government, and to enemies who were present in the United States during hostile occupation were the only ones who did not automatically obtain U.S. citizenship upon their birth on American soil, according to the ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
Birthright citizenship, often known as the “right of the soil” or jus soli, is used in around 30 nations, including the United States. The majority, including Canada and Mexico, are in the Americas.