Vermont Joins 19 Other States and Jurisdictions in Filing a Lawsuit to Defend Basic Constitutional Right
Attorney General Charity Clark today announced that Vermont and 19 other states and jurisdictions are challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The coalition argues that the executive order violates the rights to which all children born in the United States are entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
“I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and this executive order is plainly unconstitutional,” said Attorney General Clark. “Babies born here in Vermont have a constitutional right to be embraced as Vermonters and Americans.”
To stop the President’s unlawful action, Attorney General Clark and a coalition of other state attorneys general and the City of San Francisco have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, seeking to invalidate the executive order and to enjoin any actions taken to implement it. The states request immediate relief to prevent the President’s Order from taking effect through a Preliminary Injunction. Separately, several western state attorneys general sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Washington.
As the filing today explains, birthright citizenship dates back centuries—including to pre-Civil War America. Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous 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. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice upheld birthright citizenship, regardless of the immigration status of the baby’s parents.
Individuals who would be stripped of their United States citizenship under this executive order would lose their most basic rights. This would include being forced to live under the threat of deportation; losing eligibility for a wide range of federal benefits programs; losing their ability to obtain a Social Security number and to work lawfully; and losing their right to vote, serve on juries, or run for certain offices. Despite the Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship, thousands of children will—for the first time since the Dred Scott decision—lose their ability to fully and fairly be a part of American society as citizens with all its benefits and privileges.
The Executive Order harms more than residents – it significantly harms the States themselves, too. Among other harms, this 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. 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.
Joining Vermont in today’s filing are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, and the City of San Francisco.
A copy of the lawsuit can be found here.
CONTACT: Amelia Vath, Outreach and Communications Coordinator, 802-828-3171