The attorneys general of 22 US states filed a lawsuit to block President Donald Trump's move to end an immigration practice in the United States known as birthright citizenship, which guarantees that children born in the US are citizens regardless of their parents' status.
Trump's executive order signed on Monday aims to fulfill a presidential campaign promise, but its success is uncertain, given that the right to citizenship based on birth is provided for in the US Constitution.
Attorneys general of Democratic-majority states and immigrant rights advocates say the issue of citizenship by birth is guaranteed by law and that although presidents have broad authority, they are not monarchs.
"The president cannot repeal the 14th Amendment with the stroke of a pen, period!" said New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin.
The White House said it is ready to face the states in court and called the lawsuits "nothing more than part of the left's resistance."
"The radical left can either choose to reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can join us and work with President Trump," said White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a naturalized American citizen and the first locally elected Chinese-American attorney general of a U.S. state, said the lawsuit was personal to him.
"The 14th Amendment clearly states that if you are born on American soil, you are an American. Period!" he said.
"There is no legal reason to debate this issue. But the fact that Trump is wrong does not prevent him from causing serious harm to American families like mine," he said.
At the heart of the debate is the right to citizenship granted to anyone born in the United States, regardless of their parents' status. People who are in the United States on a tourist or other visa or illegally can become the parents of a citizen if their child is born here, under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, supporters of the right say.
But Mr. Trump and his allies reject this interpretation of the amendment and say there should be stricter standards for becoming a citizen. The United States is among about 30 countries, including Canada and Mexico, where citizenship is granted at birth. Most are in America.
Most other countries grant citizenship based on whether at least one parent - or in other words, by "right of blood" - is a citizen or has some form of citizenship by descent that may limit automatic citizenship only to children of parents who are in a territory legally. VOA (A2 Televizion)
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