Trump citizenship order ‘overreached by a mile’ – California attorney general
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Rob Bonta is suing alongside other states to block birthright citizenship order he calls ‘flagrant violation’ of constitution. Donald Trump “overreached by a mile” with his attempt to dismantle the longstanding constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, said.
California along with a coalition of states and the city of San Francisco are suing the administration over an executive order issued just hours after Trump was sworn into office on Monday that would deny automatic citizenship to some children born in the United States – a move they argue is in “flagrant violation” of the US constitution.
“Just because he’s the president doesn’t mean he can change the US constitution,” Bonta, a Democrat, said in an interview this week. “In fact, it is absolutely clear – it is civics 101 – that he cannot.”. The lawsuit, led by California, New Jersey and Massachusetts and filed in the US district court for Massachusetts, seeks to prevent the order from taking effect, arguing it would cause “irreparable harm” to the states and their residents. A second multi-state lawsuit challenging the order was filed in the western district of Washington, where a federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the order from taking effect. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups representing pregnant women whose children would be affected by the order have also sued.
Trump’s order, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”, makes the audacious claim that the 14th amendment has been wrongly interpreted and automatic citizenship should no longer extend to children who are born on US soil to parents living in the country unlawfully or temporarily, such as foreign students or tourists.
