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BOSTON (Reuters) – Democratic-led governments and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits against their opponents’ bid to block U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda in court on Tuesday to restore birthright citizenship.
After his inauguration on Monday, Trump, a Republican, ordered US agencies not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the US if their mother or father is not a US citizen or legal permanent resident.
Twenty-two Democratic-led states, along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, filed a pair of lawsuits in federal courts in Boston and Seattle alleging Trump violated the US Constitution.
Within hours of Trump signing the executive order, two similar cases were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organizations and an expectant mother, launching the first major court battle of his administration.
The charges are aimed at Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown. If allowed to stand, Trump’s order would for the first time deny citizenship to more than 150,000 children born in the United States each year, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said.
“President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights,” she said in a statement.
States say that losing their citizenship prevents those individuals from accessing federal programs like Medicaid and, when they age, from legally working or voting.
“Today’s swift indictment sends a clear message to the Trump administration that we stand by our residents and their basic constitutional rights,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
More lawsuits are expected from Democratic-led states and other advocacy groups that oppose Trump’s agenda, which challenges the efficiency of the Elon Musk-led State Department and the executive order Trump signed to weaken job protections for civilian workers.
1898 US Supreme Court precedent
Three of the four lawsuits were filed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Decisions by judges in those New England states are reviewed by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, the only federal appeals court where active judges are all Democratic appointees.
Four states have filed separate lawsuits in the Washington state, San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court often thwarted Trump’s first-term agenda, even as its ideological makeup shifted to actual judicial appointments.
The lawsuits argue that Trump’s executive order violates the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
The complaints were filed by the US Supreme Court in 2015.
The plaintiffs challenging the order include a Massachusetts woman named “O. Doe” who is in the country under temporary guardianship and is due to give birth in March.
Temporary Protected Areas cover more than 1 million people from 17 nations whose countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events.
Several other lawsuits challenging Trump’s other earlier executive actions are pending.
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal government workers in 37 agencies and departments, protested an executive order signed by Trump early Monday that would make it easier to fire thousands of federal agency workers and replace them with political loyalists.
