Nevada joins lawsuit defending birthright citizenship against Trump order

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford signed onto a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order issued on his first day back in the White House Monday.

Defendants in the federal suit, which was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, include the office of the president, the Department of State, U.S. Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

“Within hours of Mr. Trump being sworn in as our 47th president, he violated the Constitution” with the order, said Ford during a Tuesday press conference. “Mr. Trump has every right to implement his immigration policies, but he must do so constitutionally. Yet his blatant attack on birthright citizenship directly offends the constitution.”

The suit, brought forward by 18 states, the District of Columbia and the county and city of San Francisco, argues that birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. A second lawsuit with four other states was also filed in the Western District of Washington.

Trump’s order calls for federal agencies, starting next month, to not recognize the citizenship of a newborn born to a parent who is not a permanent resident or U.S. citizen. The same would apply to babies whose mother was legally in the country at the time of birth, but only on a temporary basis.

Ford said the order would harm Nevada directly, costing federal funding for programs that rely on the immigration status of beneficiaries.

States would have to quickly modify operations and administration of benefits causing a “significant burden,” Ford said.

Despite constitutional protections, “thousands of children, for the first time, would lose their ability to fully and fairly be part of American society as a citizen with all its benefits and privileges,” Ford said.

“Individuals who are stripped of their birthright citizenship would lose most basic rights and will live under a threat of deportation,” he added. “They would lose their ability to obtain a social security number and as they age to work lawfully. They would lose their right to vote, to serve on juries and to run for office.”

Ford said he couldn’t put a timeframe on the legal battle since Trump just issued but that his office would continue to fight as long as it needs to.

What does Trump’s order say?

The order questions that the 14th Amendment extends citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States.

The 14th Amendment was born in the aftermath of the Civil War and ratified in 1868. It says: “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.”

Trump’s order excludes the following people from automatic citizenship: those whose mothers were not legally in the United States and whose fathers were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents; people whose mothers were in the country legally but on a temporary basis and whose fathers were not citizens or legal permanent residents.

What is the history of the issue?

The 14th Amendment did not always guarantee birthright citizenship to all U.S.-born people. Congress did not authorize citizenship for all Native Americans born in the United States, for instance, until 1924.

In 1898 an important birthright citizenship case unfolded in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court held that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the country. After a trip abroad, he had faced denied reentry by the federal government on the grounds that he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

But some advocates of immigration restrictions have argued that while the case clearly applied to children born to parents who are both legal immigrants, it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status.

“After decades of Washington failing to fix our immigration system, taking away citizenship from people born in this country is not the answer, it’s not smart and it’s not constitutional,” Ford said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

An earlier version of this story misstated the plaintiffs in the case.