Or course, no one expected Trump to suddenly declare that the country’s immigration system—the central topic to his ten years of dominance in politics—no longer required a Trumpian-type fix. And, sure enough, his administration undertook a fusillade of actions to change policy on everything from border enforcement to, potentially, immigration law and constitutional rights.
Chief among them was an audacious and legally dubious attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship. Though immigration and civil rights groups largely blanched at Trump’s expected but unprecedented executive order, they did respond swiftly. As first reported by The Bulwark, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the administration on Monday night. The ACLU was joined by Make the Road, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Legal Defense Fund, and the Asian Law Caucus in defending the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship against Trump’s order.
“This move is an example of the new administration’s lack of regard for the constitution,” Kica Matos, the head of the National Immigration Law Center, told The Bulwark. “Attempting to repeal birthright citizenship via executive order is both absurd and unconstitutional.”
The executive order argues that the Fourteenth Amendment was never meant to extend citizenship universally to everyone born in the United States. It specifies that the “privilege” of U.S. citizenship does not automatically extend to people born in the country when their mother was “unlawfully present” or their mother was lawfully present but in a temporary way (in other words, through a student, work, or tourist visa) while the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident in either case.
That last provision, in particular, struck lawyers and immigration experts as both extreme and extra-judicial. Some dubbed it the “Kamala Harris clause” because it would, if implemented, have denied the citizenship of the now-former vice president, whose mother was here legally, but temporarily.
In addition to the ACLU suit, Democrats moved to condemn the effort with a swiftness that they did not employ for every executive order Trump issued.
“If you’re a textualist or an originalist, it’s clear the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, so this is blatantly illegal,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) told The Bulwark, warning that it was “highly doubtful” this “full frontal assault” on birthright citizenship would survive judicial scrutiny.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom offered just a three word statement on the order: “This is unconstitutional.”
A Bullwork Newsletter by
Adrian Caarrasquillo
Fightback resources.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cRIJsSJwtF72ckJ8QLQu5cDCGnoeh5OIIjwqRkDKdBg/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.es6myhajhn20
And what about the children of Elon Musk. Were any of them born during his time illegally here?
