A federal judge in Boston is currently weighing a request from 18 state attorneys general to block President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the United States illegally.
This hearing follows a recent decision by a federal judge in Seattle, who halted the order last Thursday and expressed concern about the constitutionality of the administration’s actions. This ruling came after a similar one from a federal judge in Maryland, who issued a nationwide halt on the same issue just a day earlier.
In the Boston case, state attorneys general, along with the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are urging Judge Leo Sorokin to issue a preliminary injunction against the executive order. They argue that the principle of birthright citizenship is rooted in the Constitution and maintain that President Trump does not have the authority to make this change. They have described the executive order as a “flagrantly illegal attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of children born in the U.S. of their citizenship based on their parents’ ancestry.”
Additionally, they warn that this order could significantly impact states’ budgets and the essential services they provide, such as foster care, healthcare for low-income children, and early interventions for babies, toddlers, and students with disabilities.
The core of this legal fight revolves around the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, ratified in 1868 following the Civil War. This amendment was established to ensure that all people born in the U.S. are recognized as citizens, addressing injustices highlighted in the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that an enslaved man could not claim citizenship even in a free state.
The Trump administration contends that the children of non-citizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and consequently lack citizenship rights. However, state attorneys argue against this claim, referencing a pivotal 1898 Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, which confirmed that the only exceptions to automatic citizenship at birth are children of diplomats, enemy forces during an occupation, those born on foreign vessels, and children of sovereign Native American tribes.
The United States is among roughly 30 countries that follow the principle of jus soli, or “right of the soil,” which grants citizenship based on birth location. Many of these countries are in the Americas, with Canada and Mexico being notable examples.
