Attorney General Dan Rayfield today announced that he and the Attorneys General from Arizona, Illinois, and Washington are challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, which violates the constitutional rights to which all children born in the U.S. are entitled.

“The administration’s attempt to sidestep the Fourteenth Amendment is a clear violation of the United States Constitution. If allowed to stand, this order would break decades of established law that has helped keep kids healthy and safe,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “While the President has every right to issue executive orders during his time in office, that power does not extend to instituting policies that infringe on our constitutional rights.”

President Trump issued an executive order fulfilling his repeated promise to end birthright citizenship, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

To stop the President’s unlawful action, which violates the Constitution and will harm hundreds of thousands of American children, Attorney General Rayfield is filing a multi-state lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, seeking to invalidate the executive order and to enjoin any actions taken to implement it. The plaintiff states request immediate injunctive relief to prevent the President’s Order from taking effect through a Temporary Restraining Order.

As the Attorney General’s filing today explains, birthright citizenship dates back centuries—including to pre-Civil War America. Although the Supreme Court’s notorious decision in Dred Scott denied birthright citizenship to the descendants of slaves, the post-Civil War United States adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to protect citizenship for children born in the country. As the Attorney General’s filing also explains, the U.S. Supreme Court has twice upheld birthright citizenship, regardless of the immigration status of the baby’s parents.

Oregon’s filing outlines the harms States will face with this historic shift in constitutional interpretation. Among other things, the Order will cause the States to lose federal funding to programs that they administer, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and foster care and adoption assistance programs, which all turn at least in part on the immigration status of the resident being served. States will also be required—on no notice and at considerable expense—to immediately begin modifying their operation and administration of benefits programs to account for this change, which will require significant burdens for multiple agencies that operate programs for the benefit of the States’ residents. The States’ filing explains that they should not have to bear these dramatic costs while their case proceeds because the Order is directly inconsistent with the Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

States joining Oregon in today’s filing include Arizona, Illinois and Washington.

Source: Oregon Attorney General

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