BOSTON: The first lawsuits against executive orders signed by President Donald Trump since taking office have been filed by civil rights and immigrant organizations. One of the lawsuits aims to revoke birthright citizenship in the United States.
Ahead of anticipated legal challenges by a number of Democratic attorneys general in states like California and Connecticut, the complaints were filed late Monday in federal court in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the White House.
There are already challenges aimed against the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and an order the Republican issued that weakened federal servants’ job protections, and more lawsuits challenging other parts of Trump’s program are anticipated from Democratic-led states and advocacy groups.
An order instructing federal agencies not to recognize US citizenship for children born in the United States to mothers who are in the country illegally or temporarily, such as visa holders, and whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents, was the target of the New England lawsuits. This order was a key component of Trump’s extensive immigration crackdown.
Plaintiffs contend that everybody born in the United States is deemed a citizen under the constitution.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations filed the first lawsuit against the order in Concord, New Hampshire, only hours after Trump took office. Around midnight, an immigrant organization and a pregnant mother in Boston filed another case.
The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals, which has five active federal judges who are all nominees of Democratic presidents—a rarity in the country—would examine any decisions made by those district court judges.
According to both complaints, the executive order infringed upon the right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which states that anybody born in the US is deemed a citizen.
The US Supreme Court’s 1898 judgment in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that children born in the US to non-citizen parents are entitled to US citizenship, is cited in both challenges.
A lady known only as “O. Doe,” a resident of Massachusetts who is in the nation on temporary protected status and is expecting a child in March, is one of the plaintiffs mentioned in that complaint.
More than 1 million people from 17 countries currently hold temporary protected status, which is granted to those whose home countries have suffered natural catastrophes, armed conflicts, or other extreme circumstances.
There are also a number of other lawsuits contesting various elements of Trump’s other early executive moves.
Trump signed an order that makes it easier to dismiss thousands of federal agency employees and replace them with political loyalists. Late Monday, the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal government employees in 37 agencies and departments, filed a lawsuit against the order.