President Trump signed an executive order that sought to bar certain children born in the U.S. from receiving automatic birthright citizenship. A federal court in New Hampshire has now moved to temporarily block the executive order.
A class action lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of immigrant parents and their children. The lawsuit alleged that the president was attempting to contravene the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which specifically declares in section 1 that all persons born in the U.S. are to be considered citizens.
The preliminary injunction was met with celebration from all the unions and parties interested in protecting the Constitution from Trump’s overreach. Cody Wofsy, the deputy director of the ACLU, said, “Today’s ruling is the latest rebuke of President Trump’s wildly unconstitutional bid to end birthright citizenship. This attempt to deny babies their citizenship is as illegal as it is inhumane, and we will keep fighting until we stop this order for good.”
The White House has been licking its wounds in what has shaped up to be a nightmare week, where everything they promised their base — they’ve been unable to deliver. Most notably, there was the refusal by the Trump administration to declassify the Epstein files. So predictably, the White House decided that this is the one issue on which they will be aggressive.
Trump’s administration has vowed to fight these charges vigorously, releasing a statement saying that these are “attempts by rogue district court judges to impede the policies President Trump was elected to implement.”
The administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment is that it should not extend to the offspring of undocumented immigrants. The executive order was one of the first actions that Trump pressed upon entering office. His general stance on immigration has been a hardline one, where no law will stand in the way of his goal of mass deportations. To ensure this, he has set up detentions in the middle of alligator habitats and even falsely accused some immigrants of being part of gangs — whatever it will take. Now, to fight back against these unfavorable rulings, Trump’s administration is making formal arguments to the Supreme Court that federal courts should have limited abilities when it comes to issuing universal injunctions.
Trump is also considering other cases ongoing simultaneously with this evolving case. He reportedly is contemplating whether he should subpoena Harvard University on the basis of similar immigration concerns. Despite the immigrants who study at Harvard having the correct paperwork, Trump is demanding their records for the White House to peruse due to his concerns about the Ivy League being too “woke.” Harvard has since moved to court with concerns about the president continuing to target them for exercising their constitutional rights.
A senior member of the ACLU celebrated the preliminary ruling of the court, saying, “The U.S. Constitution ensures that no politician can decide who among those born in this country is worthy of citizenship.” Trump’s ultimate goal seems to be using immigrants as a punching bag whenever he needs to distract his base from his unfulfilled promises to improve the lives of working-class citizens. People legally fighting back is just making all his other blunders more apparent.
