Massachusetts and 17 other states and two cities wasted no time today suing to block an order that tries to outlaw the 14th Amendment's "birthright citizenship" - the right of people born on American soil to be American citizens.
In their suit, filed in US District Court in Boston, the commonwealth, the other states, San Francisco and Washington, DC say the 14th Amendment and related case law is actually simple enough that even a former game-show host should be able to understand it:
The principle of birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the Constitution for more than 150 years. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment unambiguously and expressly confers citizenship on "[a]ll persons born" in and "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. More than 125 years ago, the Supreme Court confirmed that this entitles a child born in the United States to noncitizen parents to automatic citizenship. See United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). Congress subsequently codified that understanding in the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1401). And the Executive Branch has long recognized that any attempt to deny citizenship to children based on their parents’ citizenship or immigration status would be "unquestionably unconstitutional."
Then again, we are talking about a 34-time convicted felon:
On the basis of this unlawful declaration, the President prescribes that the federal government shall not issue or recognize any document recognizing citizenship for any such child born after February 19, 2025. The President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.
They add:
If this unprecedented executive action is allowed to stand, both Plaintiffs and their residents will suffer immediate and irreparable harm. Every year, thousands of children are born in Plaintiffs' jurisdictions to parents who lack legal status or have a lawful status on a temporary basis. Under the Order, such children born after February 19, 2025 - who would have been unquestionably deemed citizens had they been born two days ago - will lack any legal status in the eyes of the federal government. They will all be deportable, and many will be stateless. They will lose the ability to access myriad federal services that are available to their fellow Americans. And despite the Constitution's guarantee of their citizenship, they will lose their rights to participate in the economic and civic life of their own country - to work, vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices.
The Order will also cut federal funding on which Plaintiff States rely to provide essential services to the most vulnerable children living within their borders: basic healthcare access for low-income children, foster care services for neglected and abused kids, and early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities. Plaintiffs will also be required - on no notice and at considerable expense - to immediately begin modifying their administration of benefits programs to account for this change.
The suit asks a judge "declare that the Order is contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States," and block the new administration from attempting to enforce it.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Complete complaint | 422.26 KB |
Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!
Ad:
Comments
And just like that
By Homer Bedloe
Tue, 01/21/2025 - 4:14pm
a new Luigi was born.
Stop trying
By Sator
Tue, 01/21/2025 - 5:38pm
to make fetch happen.
on MLK day
By Matthew Miller
Tue, 01/21/2025 - 6:48pm
From Letter from Birmingham Jail:
"Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."
Perfect
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 01/21/2025 - 8:27pm
Thumbs up.
should have a live plaintiff to the lawsuit
By deselby
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 2:55am
seeking a specific remedy. Not just a declaratory judgment action.
The lead case is US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) which was about a real person.
Surely a suitable plaintiff can be found rapidly.
Brings the issue out of legal abstraction and puts a baby face on it.
It doesn’t take effect immediately
By ST
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 7:44am
It is scheduled to go into effect on February 19 (30 days after order was signed) so there won’t be a baby to associate with it until then. My understanding is that they do have some specific pregnant women as part of the claim, and the rush to file is to make sure it’s addressed first in a more sympathetic district court, which could put injunctions in place while the Supreme Court decides it.
The Supreme Court will, of course, side with Trump
By necturus
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 8:35am
They have already shown they have no respect for precedent. They have already perverted the First Amendment into banning any limitation on the influence of money in politics, and turned the Second Amendment into a right to intimidate one's neighbors. They can just as easily declare that the Fourteenth doesn't apply to anyone in the country illegally.
If they're having an especially bad day, they can even make their decision retroactive: your grandparents weren't here legally, so your parents weren't citizens, and, therefore, neither are you. Into the train with you.
The constitution of 1787 no longer functions; remember, that constitution never gave the Court the power to overturn laws or rewrite amendments. It gave Congress the power to define and limit the powers of the Court, and Congress never did so. And so, today, we live under a nine-headed monarchy, with the Court actually above the Presidency and Congress, and even above the law itself.
no they won't
By deselby
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 9:02am
at least not a majority.
ignoring the plain words of the 14th Amendment would be a stretch too far for them.
At worst it will be 7-2 to overturn the order. Alito and Thomas dissenting.
Concur, somewhat
By lbb
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 11:03am
I think you nailed it, at least as far as "if I was betting money, this is what I'd bet on". I can see Alito and Thomas going through unbelievable contortions to rule in favor of the EO, and a few others really wanting to comply with Trump but being just a little too craven to do so.
Hyperbole
By anon
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 9:54am
It's not such a sweeping issue for the Supreme Court to decide. The text of the Executive Order is narrowly tailored to become an issue that the Supreme Court has not yet resolved, namely how the existing Supreme Court case law on the subject matter (which is Constitutional) did not go as far as finding the right for the children of non-citizen subjects of foreign sovereigns whose residency and domicile in the US was not permanent (provides no cover to colloquial “birth tourists” nor children without either parent having established any form of permanent residency even if not citizenship), nor has the Court struck down statutes passed by Congress which exclude, for example, certain children born of the employees of foreign sovereigns (the children of those with colloquial "diplomatic immunity").
In the court of UHub opinion perhaps we’ll see a pecking order of sympathetic, hypothetical plaintiffs (from least sympathetic to most): the child born of a Russian national who is employed by Russia to be in the USA for the sole purpose of meddling with US elections, the child of a wealthy private citizen of Slovenia who flew to the US on a private jet just to give birth here a mile from the airport and then fly home, the child of two Iranians both here on a temporary student visa, and the child of a Guatemalan mother who gave birth in the US only days after she was smuggled across the border by cartel coyotes.
We might expect a “smart” plaintiff choice to be the child of a completely undocumented mother who has been residing in a shelter in the US for years prior (at least as soon as the child is denied something material by the federal government), and maybe the actual Court will, sympathies aside, find that the mom in effect became a permanent resident even if not a citizen nor law abiding by the time she gave birth. However, going with this type of plaintiff opens up the flank for all of the above hypothetical plaintiffs (and more) to be excluded by what would be the Court’s new “permanence” test (or what would more likely be the Court telling the Congress to define “temporary” as relates to exclusions from the colloquial “birthright”).
This would certainly be a good test
By merlinmurph
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 10:09am
This would certainly be a good test to see where some of these judges lie.
Like the above poster, Thomas and Alito, like trump, just don't care. Not sure about the others, even Kavanaugh.
While Alito and Thomas are
By NoMoreBanks
Wed, 01/22/2025 - 10:40am
While Alito and Thomas are just ideologues trying to remake the country, most of the rest of the corrupt court is as the beck and call of the uber-rich. A decision like that - especially retroactive - would cause way too much chaos and disruption to the machine that pours money into the trillionaire's pockets. Sure all these companies would love to expand their under-the-table sub-minimum-wage hiring of people without rights but that would be millions and millions of people suddenly stateless, without the right to work - it would deeply, deeply fuck the economy and more importantly to them, the stock market.
The Republican congress is a combination of corrupt and stupid - they do plenty of things that cause unintended consequences because they're stupid --- but the supreme court is only corrupt, not stupid. They and their $$masters$$ can foresee what would happen with a decision like that.
Hold up! Why is the 14th
By Frelmont
Thu, 01/23/2025 - 4:24pm
Hold up! Why is the 14th Amendment immune from interpretation, but the Second Amendment is not immune from reimagining?
Add comment