WASHINGTON — A day after President Donald Trump signed a slew of immigration-related executive orders, immigration researchers said during a Tuesday briefing they are scrutinizing the legal implications of the White House’s move to end birthright citizenship as well as sweeping directives barring asylum and more.
The ACLU and immigrant rights groups sued the Trump administration in U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire shortly after Trump signed the birthright citizenship order. On Tuesday, 18 state attorneys general also sued over the order, in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Those states include New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Additionally, state attorneys general from Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington sued the Trump administration in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle over birthright citizenship, in which people born in the United States are considered citizens — excluding the children of foreign diplomats — even if their parents are not.
Other executive orders Trump signed Monday night declare a national emergency at the southern border, end asylum and reinstate several harsh immigration policies from his first term.
“Executive orders do not change the fact that U.S. law provides for access to asylum … which I think will feature prominently in what I expect to be rapid litigation of these measures,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration and facilitated the press briefing.
Birthright citizenship
But it was the order on birthright citizenship that immediately attracted multiple legal challenges.
The executive order states the federal government will not recognize or issue citizenship documentation to any child born after Feb. 19 to parents who are in the country without proper authorization, or if the parent is in the United States on a temporary visa and the other parent is a noncitizen or green card holder.
Meaning, if a person is in the country illegally or temporarily, their children will not have access to birthright citizenship. People who are in the country permanently and have obtained it through legal means are allowed birthright citizenship for their children.
Birthright citizenship is a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and was upheld in a 1898 U.S. Supreme Court case.
There are roughly 5.5 million U.S. children born with at least one parent who is an undocumented immigrant and 1.8 million U.S.-born children with two undocumented parents.
“I think if it wasn’t obvious already, it is just the operational sort of challenge of even making this interpretation live,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow and director of the Migration Policy Institute office at New York University School of Law, at the briefing.
He argued that the executive order would apply to any child born in the U.S. after it’s enacted and would require hospitals to check the documentation of everyone.
