How Conn. AG wants to stop Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, along with 17 other states, filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.

The lawsuit alleges that the order is in violation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“This is a war on American families waged by a President with zero respect for our Constitution. We will sue imminently, and I have every confidence we will win. The 14th Amendment says what it means, and it means what it says—if you are born on American soil, you are an American. Period. Full stop. There is no legitimate legal debate on this question,” reads part of a statement from Tong.

The lawsuit is co-led by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New Jersey and California. It follows similar challenges filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Boston-based immigrant rights organizations.

For Tong this fight is person, as he was born in Hartford in 1973 and was the child of Chinese immigrants.

“My parents and grandparents ran for their lives, they fled war and hunger and ultimately made it to Connecticut with nothing. They worked until their bodies broke in the hot kitchens of Chinese restaurants so that I could become the first American born in my family—a citizen by right of my birth here in Hartford, Connecticut,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “My life would not be possible without birthright citizenship. This is the core of the American dream, and part of the essential character of our nation. We knew this fight was coming, and we are prepared,”

What does the 14th Amendment say about birthright citizenship?

The 14^th Amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

It was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War in order to grant citizenship and rights to formerly enslaved people. Its guarantee of birthright citizenship to children born in the US to immigrant parents was confirmed by the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in which the Supreme Court ruled that an American born in California to parents of Chinese descent was a U.S. citizen.

Birthright citizenship for foreigners has long been affirmed by the Supreme Court despite being challenged many times, according to the American Immigration Council.

What is Trump’s…