By Zachery Schmidt | The Center Square contributor
(The Center Square) – U.S. Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both D-Nevada, introduced a bill last week to prevent President Donald Trump from ending birthright citizenship.
In January, Trump issued an executive order that stopped this practice, which allows people born in America to be citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Trump’s executive order, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” said the Constitution’s 14th Amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”
“The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ ” the order said.
The Nevada senators’ bill is designed to prevent Trump from implementing his executive order. The bill is co-sponsored by eight other Democratic senators, from California, Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Vermont.
The Born in the USA Act would prevent federal funds from being used to enforce this executive order.
Rosen and Cortez Masto came out against Trump’s executive order when it was first signed, the Center Square reported.
Rosen said Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship violated the Constitution.
“The U.S. Constitution is abundantly clear that if you are born in the United States, then you are a citizen,” said Rosen. “I’m leading my Senate colleagues in introducing this bill to stop President Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to end automatic citizenship for those born here.”
Cortez Masto stated Trump could not alter the Constitution with “a swipe of his pen.”
“Any child born in the United States is a citizen of the United States, and we will hold this administration accountable for their attempt to deny that right,” she said.
Meanwhile, four judges have struck down the birthright citizenship executive order.
In the most recent ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin sided with the attorneys general who brought the case against Trump.
“The Constitution confers birthright citizenship broadly, including to persons within the categories described in the executive order,” Sorokin said in the ruling.
