DELMARVA - Delaware and Maryland are joining 16 other states in a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship in the United States.
Birthright citizenship guarantees citizenship for all children born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents’ citizenship or immigration status. Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in office, directs federal agencies to stop recognizing that automatic citizenship if the child’s mother is unlawfully present in the U.S. and the father is not a citizen or if the mother is in the U.S. temporarily and the father is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
“The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” the Trump administration argues.
Trump signed the executive order on January 20, sparking legal challenges from across the country and bringing the language of the Fourteenth Amendment to the fore of a Constitutional clash.
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings argued Trump’s executive order violates both the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
“We are a nation of immigrants, and a nation of laws; this executive order flies in the face of both,” said Attorney General Jennings. “The president is subordinate to the Constitution, not the other way around, and here the Constitution is unambiguous. We are taking action to defend not only American children — who deserve the same rights and opportunities as me, the president and everyone else — but the institutions that restored this country after the Civil War.”
Jennings, along with numerous other states’ Attorney Generals, have filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to challenge the executive order, requesting the courts to grant immediate relief to prevent the order from taking effect.
Other jurisdictions joining Delaware and Maryland include New Jersey, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., and the City of San Francisco.
