On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an issued an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” aiming to clarify the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. According to the order issued by The White House it seeks to exclude from birthright citizenship individuals born in the United States under two specific conditions:

  1. When the mother was unlawfully present in the U.S., and the father was neither a US citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.
  2. When the mother was lawfully but temporarily present in the U.S. (e.g., on a student, work, or tourist visa), and the father was neither a US citizen nor a lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.

The executive order is set to take effect 30 days from its issuance, applying only to individuals born after this period.

“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” the order reads. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’  Consistent with this understanding, the 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, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.”  

During his presidential campaign Trump made clear that he planned to issue such an order, ending what he and other opponents have described as “birth tourism,” the practice of women coming to the US illegally, or on a temporary visa, to deliver their baby so the child has citizenship.

In 2019, the Migration Policy Institute estimated that 5.5 million children under age 18 lived with at least one parent in the country illegally. In North Carolina, the report found just over 142,000 children with one parent who was not in the country legally. Among those children who had at least one parent illegally living in the US, but were living with two parents, 45% had both parents who were unauthorized to reside in the United States.

Numbers USA has been pushing to clarify birthright citizenship for years, saying it leads to “chain migration,” which is when a child born in the US of parent illegal present becomes an adult and can sponsor relatives for citizenship.

Critics of Trump’s executive order, including North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson say Trump overstepped his presidential authority in this order. On Tuesday, Jackson joined 17 other Democratic attorneys general and the District of Columbia in filing a federal lawsuit challenging the executive order. The lawsuit, filed in a Massachusetts federal court, contends that the president is overreaching and lacks such authority. The plaintiffs argue that the 14th Amendment unambiguously grants citizenship to all individuals born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ citizenship or immigration status. Four other states filed a separate suit.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a separate lawsuit against the executive order on Monday.

“We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration’s overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“These lawsuits are nothing more than an extension of the Left’s resistance – and the Trump administration is ready to face them in court,” Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, told Fox News Digital.

While the order is not retroactive and would not take effect until 30 days after issuance, chatter on social media channels Tuesday claim that Trump’s own children would lose their citizenship under the executive order, because the mother of Don Junior, Ivanka, and Eric was a Czechoslovakian citizen at the time of their births. However, Ivana Trump was married to their father, Donald Trump – a US citizen – making them also US citizens. Critics have also said that Second Lady Usha Vance would lose her US citizenship under the order. Her parents immigrated to the US from India in the 1980s. She was born in San Diego, California in 1986, although it is unclear whether her parents became US citizens before or after her birth. However, Usha Vance is now married to JD Vance, a US citizen.

The lawsuits filed over this executive order are the first in one could be a series of suits opposing Trump’s first actions as president. On Inauguration Day Trump took more than 200 executive actions, including signing more than 26 executive order; one of which rescinded 78 of Biden’s executive actions.