A group of 18 states with democratic governments has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump in opposition to his attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship in the United States through an executive order. The lawsuit alleges that the decree is illegal and contrary to the Constitution, which states that every person born on U.S. soil automatically obtains citizenship, regardless of their parents' immigration status.
Trump's executive order, signed shortly after he took office, establishes that children born in the United States to undocumented parents or those with temporary legal status, such as a work or tourist visa, will not be able to obtain U.S. citizenship. The suing states, including New York, Colorado, and California, argue that the president does not have the authority to change a constitutional amendment and that this measure could cause immediate and irreparable harm to the residents of their jurisdictions.
Eliminating birthright citizenship would prevent the State Department from issuing passports to children born to undocumented parents and would complicate the Social Security Administration's ability to recognize them as citizens, affecting their access to basic rights and the ability to work legally in the country. Conservative groups have been pushing for this measure, and Trump had threatened it during his first term, though he never implemented it.
To redefine birthright citizenship, the most direct route would be to propose a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ratification by three-quarters of the states. There are no exact figures on the number of children born in the United States to undocumented parents. According to recent data, there were about 1.3 million American adults in that situation in 2022.
A 2018 report from the Congressional Research Service notes that, while the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment implies that the children of undocumented immigrants are U.S. citizens, potential legal challenges could change this interpretation since the Supreme Court has not firmly resolved the issue in the modern era.
