Pregnant Women & U.S. States Sue Trump for Restricting Birthright Citizenship
Five pregnant women are suing President Trump against his birthright executive order
FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2015, photo, a woman in Sullivan City, Texas, who said she entered the country illegally, walks with her daughter who was born in the United States, but was denied a birth certificate. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Update: As of February 5, 2025, a federal judge in Maryland has indefinitely blocked President Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship and it will be applied nationally, according to Forbes.
Over the past few weeks, President Trump has taken drastic steps to address immigration in the U.S., negatively impacting migrants both on the border and those residing in the U.S. and undocumented communities already in the country. Besides shutting down the CBP One App, which helped migrants go through a legal immigration process, and conducting mass immigration raids in major U.S. cities, he also signed an executive order to remove birthright citizenship, targeting children born in the U.S. to immigrant and undocumented parents. Children born under these circumstances would no longer be recognized citizens and would not receive a Social Security number or be approved to receive a passport. This week, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, the immigrant right organization CASA, and the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law responded by filing a lawsuit in Maryland federal court against Trump’s administration on behalf of five pregnant women. Attorneys general from 22 states have filed similar lawsuits against the executive order, as it violates the 14th Amendment in the Constitution, NBC News reported.
“I don’t want them to take away the citizenship of innocent babies born here, it shouldn’t matter the status of their parents, their race, their color, they shouldn’t be discriminated against,” Nivida, an ASAP member from Honduras who expects to give birth to her child in April, told NBC. “I believe violating the protection that the Constitution gives to a child born here is violating his or her rights as an individual.”
President Trump signed the executive order, known as titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” on January 20 shortly after his inauguration. It will limit birthright citizenship to children with one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, meaning that children with parents who are both undocumented or one parent who is in the U.S. on a temporary visa, such as work and student visas, will no longer be recognized as citizens. This is direct violation of the 14th Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Thus far, the executive order has been the subject of several other lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian Law Caucus, eight state attorneys general in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and four U.S. states in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington. Three days after the order was signed, Judge John C. Coughenour, a federal district court judge from the Western District of Washington, temporarily blocked it. In response to the lawsuit on behalf of the five pregnant woman, a second judge, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, also blocked the order on Wednesday, February 5, citing the clear language of the Constitution and a 125-year-old Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing birthright citizenship.
Trump’s Justice Department lawyers have insisted that this order will improve the ongoing “immigration crisis” at the border. If it remains unchallenged, President Trump’s executive order is due to take effect on February 19, 2025.
