Twenty-four Democratic-led states and cities are suing President Donald Trump over his attempt to abolish birthright citizenship in the United States.
The lawsuit claims that the executive order Trump signed on Monday, January 20, violates the 14th Amendment, which gives every child born in the United States a constitutional right to citizenship.
“Despite a President’s broad powers to set immigration policy, however, the Citizenship Stripping Order falls far outside the legal bounds of the President’s authority,” states a lawsuit from 18 states, Washington, DC, and San Francisco.
The case could be the first major showdown at the Supreme Court over President Trump’s policies in his second term. The 18 states filed the lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts, meaning that any appeal of the court’s decision will be heard by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose judges are all appointed by Democrats. The Supreme Court has upheld birthright citizenship in the past, and federal law passed by Congress before the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 provides that children born within the U.S. are entitled to citizenship.
“The president’s entitled to put forth a policy agenda that he sees fit,” New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who is co-leading the new lawsuit, told CNN.
“When it comes to birthright citizenship – something that’s been part of the fabric of this nation for centuries, that’s been in the Constitution for 157 years since the Civil War, that’s been upheld by the Supreme Court twice – the president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, rewrite the Constitution and upend the rule of law,” he added.
Also on Tuesday, the attorneys general of Washington state, Arizona, Oregon and Illinois filed their own lawsuits on the West Coast.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Seattle, which sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Both lawsuits also seek a preliminary injunction to block the policy before the Trump administration takes any steps to implement it.
The American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups also filed a similar lawsuit on Monday challenging Trump’s order.