President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to end birthright citizenship, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta says he and the state are prepared to fight back.
On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order saying in effect children born in the United States to parents who did not enter the country legally can be denied citizenship.
Bonta on Tuesday responded. The state attorney general along with San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit and motion for preliminary injunction to immediately block Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. They and other state attorneys general say Trump's order violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
"As home to more immigrants than any other state in the country, California has a vested interest in ensuring that the federal government recognizes the fundamental rights of the children of immigrants who are born in our state," Bonta said. "As he so often did in his first term in office, the president once again overstepped his authority with this unconstitutional executive order."
Many legal experts predict the order will eventually be deemed unconstitutional. But the fear today is that the damage may have already been done.
San Jose immigration lawyer Andrew Newcomb said his phone has been ringing off the hook since Election Day.
"People in the undocumented community are refusing to go to the hospitals, refusing to go to work, refusing to send their children to school because they’re afraid that one misstep could cause their entire life to be shattered as they know it," he said.
The order is currently set to take effect in 30 days, but legal experts believe a federal court is likely to issue an injunction barring the law from taking effect until the legal challenges are over.
"It's very dubious legal reasoning under Trump’s executive order, and he’s not able to just undo the 14th Amendment with the stroke of his pen," Newcomb said.
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Newcomb said he believes it will be quite some time before the case is ultimately decided, likely by the Supreme Court.
The birthright citizenship issue dates back to the Civil War, and one of the biggest court challenges was posed by a San Francisco man whose parents were born in China. In that 1898 case, the court ruled that because he was born in San Francisco, he was a U.S. citizen.
"The story of birthright citizenship is as San Francisco as they come when one of our citizens stood up for his constitutional rights in the late 1800s," Chiu said. "Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco on Sacramento Street to immigrant parents."
Meanwhile, protesters in San Jose gathered to decry the order and nine others related to immigration, including declaring a national emergency at the U.S.–Mexico border as well as immigration enforcement action in major cities.
