{"id":325527,"date":"2025-01-31T10:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T16:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=325527"},"modified":"2025-01-31T13:59:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T19:59:30","slug":"pregnant-immigrants-suit-trump-birthright-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pregnant-immigrants-suit-trump-birthright-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"Pregnant immigrants file suit against Trump administration\u2019s birthright citizenship order"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) at Georgetown Law has <\/span>filed a lawsuit<\/span><\/a> seeking to block the Trump administration\u2019s executive order ending birthright citizenship.<\/span><\/p>\n

The executive order<\/span><\/a>, titled, \u201cProtecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,\u201d mandates infants born in the U.S. no longer be issued legal citizenship documents if their mother was unlawfully present or only temporarily lawfully present in the country, and their father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of their birth.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does the lawsuit claim?<\/b><\/p>\n

ICAP filed the lawsuit on behalf of a group of five pregnant immigrant mothers, alongside two organizations that specialize in immigrant advocacy, all of whom claim President Trump\u2019s order violates the Fourteenth Amendment<\/a> to the U.S. Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit fear<\/a> that their children will not receive health care or education in the United States; others are concerned that their children could be denied U.S. citizenship, removed from their parents, and deported without them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How has the Trump administration responded?<\/b><\/p>\n

The Trump administration, however, has argued that birthright citizenship itself is \u201cunconstitutional.\u201d Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the administration, <\/span>explained<\/span><\/a> in her first White House press briefing, \u201cThis administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, and that is why President Trump signed that executive order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal immigrants who come to this country and have a child are not subject to the laws of this jurisdiction. That’s the opinion of this administration,\u201d Leavitt concluded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is birthright citizenship?<\/b><\/p>\n

The question of birthright citizenship centers on differing interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment, <\/span>which begins<\/span><\/a> by reading, \u201cAll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Congress passed the <\/span>Fourteenth Amendment<\/span><\/a> in 1866, following the end of the Civil War, with the intentions of eradicating legal disparities between white and black Americans. This amendment offered citizenship to formerly enslaved individuals and required all states to extend the rights of due process and equal protection of the law to all Americans citizens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The concept of <\/span>birthright citizenship<\/span><\/a> is derived from the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states in part:<\/span><\/p>\n

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those arguing in favor of birthright citizenship assert that any individual born on American soil is automatically granted American citizenship, regardless of his or her parents\u2019 legal status in the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump Administration\u2019s executive order, however, argues, \u201cthe Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not \u2018subject to the jurisdiction thereof.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Irony? Pro-abortion ACLU offers concern for \u201cexpectant couples\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

ICAP is not the only legal organization to share its opinion on the termination of birthright citizenship and subsequent lawsuits. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a legal advocacy group that focuses on issues such as \u201cimmigrant rights,\u201d \u201ctrans justice,\u201d and \u201creproductive freedom,\u201d has spoken out about the executive order.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a <\/span>press release<\/span><\/a>, ACLU staff vocalized their concerns for \u201cexpectant couples\u201d across the country who are unsure what the future holds for their children who have not yet been born.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans,\u201d stated Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. \u201cWe will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The ACLU is a historically pro-abortion organization that <\/span>recently opposed<\/span><\/a> federal legislation known as the \u201cBorn-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.\u201d This legislation seeks to protect the rights of newborn children who survive attempted abortions. In that instance, the ACLU chose to characterize the defense of newborns as an \u201cinappropriate and harmful\u201d form of \u201cpolitical intrusion.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, pro-abortion ideologues take offense to the notion that the Fourteenth Amendment, at issue in this lawsuit, offers constitutional protections for preborn<\/em> human beings from abortion. Last year, New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie argued<\/a> that it is “perverse for the anti-abortion movement to use the 14th Amendment as a cudgel against bodily autonomy in the name of so-called fetal rights.” Yet, as Live Action News previously reported:<\/p>\n

Interpretations of the 14th Amendment \u2014 such as wording from when it was ratified, historic state practices related to abortion, and the framer\u2019s understanding of the amendment \u2014\u00a0overwhelmingly show that preborn children are human beings with an inherent right to basic legal rights and equal protection under the law.<\/em><\/p>\n

Furthermore, at the time the 14th Amendment was enacted, virtually every state understood and accepted that the legal phrase \u201cperson\u201d included preborn life…<\/em><\/p>\n

Lawyer and writer Josh Craddock stated in a video for Live Action, “Legalized abortion discriminates against preborn children because it means our general laws against homicide don\u2019t apply when the victim is an unborn child. And those are precisely the sort of wrongs that the 14th Amendment was designed to dissolve.”<\/p>\n