Rights Groups Challenge Trump’s New Birthright Citizenship Orders
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigrant-rights organisations have asked a federal court to prevent President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing new executive orders seeking to restrict access to birthright citizenship.
In a filing submitted on Tuesday, the groups argued that the latest directives conflict with a previous Supreme Court ruling that rejected Trump’s broader attempt to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents.
Trump’s latest orders, issued on August 6, focus in part on birth tourism, referring to cases in which foreign nationals travel to the United States to give birth. The directives also seek to exclude certain children from citizenship where their parents are linked to foreign governments, are accused of using fraudulent means to obtain citizenship or fall under classifications covered by U.S. national security laws.
The legal challenge was filed in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire. The groups are asking the judge to clarify that the new orders cannot be used to affect children covered by an existing court injunction. The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice had not immediately issued responses to the filing.
