LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada's attorney general is joining a lawsuit challenging a presidential executive order that could revoke citizenship for children born in the United States.
President Donald Trump signed the order shortly after taking the oath of office for his second term on Monday.
Attorney General Aaron Ford argues the president's action violates the 14th Amendment and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. In a prepared statement announcing his opposition on Tuesday, Ford outlined the history of the 14th Amendment, dating back to the mid-1800s in the aftermath of the Civil War.
"The last time birthright citizenship was denied to Americans was in the 1857 Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, a decision that denied birthright citizenship to all Americans of African descent, both enslaved and free," he wrote.
The 14th Amendment, Ford writes, was passed by Congress in response to the Supreme Court decision, guaranteeing citizenship to people born in the U.S.
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Trump's White House, in the executive order the president signed Monday, argues "The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States."
"The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States 'but not subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'" the order goes on to state. "Consistent with this understanding, Congress has further specified through legislation that 'a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof' is a national and citizen of the United States at birth...generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment's text."
Ford and the other attorneys general now challenging the order disagree.
"Birthright citizenship has been adjudicated and decided," Ford stated. "We cannot allow this unilateral attack on the constitutional rights of Americans to succeed."
Ford writes that implementing the order would also harm hundreds of thousands of Nevada residents and the States themselves. If it's implemented, States will lose federal funding and be required "on no notice and at considerable expense" to modify how they operate those programs, which the attorneys general argue "significantly burdens multiple State agencies that operate programs for the benefits of the States' residents."
The attorneys general opposed to the executive order are petitioning the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts to invalidate it and prevent it from taking effect.
Jurisdictions joining Ford in the filing include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C. and the City of San Francisco.
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