Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford on Tuesday announced he was joining in the effort to challenge President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States regardless of their parents’ status.
Within hours of his inauguration Monday, Trump signed the order and fulfilled a campaign policy, disputing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
But Ford said “the need has arisen” to challenge one of Trump’s earliest orders in a decision merely hours after he was sworn in for his second term as president.
“Today’s order significantly harms Nevada itself,” Ford said. “This order will cause federal funding that (programs) administer such as Medicaid, health insurance programs and adoption assistance programs, which are all based on the immigration status of Nevadans.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, at least 18 states had joined the lawsuit.
Ford referred to the “darkest chapter” of American history when slavery was upheld and Black people were denied rights in the Scott vs. Sandford decision in the Supreme Court in 1857. It helped to perpetuate racism into the Civil War. With the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, anyone who would be born or naturalized in, or within the jurisdiction of, the United States rightfully would be citizens, Ford said.
That would be tested in 1898 with a U.S. Supreme Court case involving Wong Kim Ark, who was born to Chinese immigrants in San Francisco and was denied reentry to the country by the federal government. It was argued he was not a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The court ruled in his favor.
Ford said Trump’s move “offends the Constitution.”
“A few hours ago, I sued Mr. Trump in federal court for violating the United States Constitution as well as the Immigration and Nationality Act and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions,” he said. “If allowed to stand, this executive order would mean that some babies born in Nevada who would have been citizens will no longer enjoy the privileges and benefits of citizenship — individuals who are stripped of their birthright citizenship.
“It’s not smart and it’s not constitutional, and I’ll do everything in my power to stop it,” he said.
He said there is no timeframe on how long the case might take.