22 states sue to stop Trump’s order blocking birthright citizenship

22 states sue to stop Trump’s order blocking birthright citizenship
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown speaks during a news conference announcing that Washington will join a federal lawsuit to challenge President Donald Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Seattle. (AP)
Short Url
Updated 23 January 2025
Follow

22 states sue to stop Trump’s order blocking birthright citizenship

22 states sue to stop Trump’s order blocking birthright citizenship
  • The White House said it’s ready to face the states in court and called the lawsuits “nothing more than an extension of the Left’s resistance”

Attorneys general from 22 states sued Tuesday to block President Donald Trump’s move to end a century-old immigration practice known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that US-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status.

Trump’s roughly 700-word executive order, issued late Monday, amounts to a fulfillment of something he’s talked about during the presidential campaign. But whether it succeeds is far from certain amid what is likely to be a lengthy legal battle over the president’s immigration policies and a constitutional right to citizenship.

The Democratic attorneys general and immigrant rights advocates say the question of birthright citizenship is settled law and that while presidents have broad authority, they are not kings.

“The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period,” New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said.

The White House said it’s ready to face the states in court and called the lawsuits “nothing more than an extension of the Left’s resistance.”

“Radical Leftists can either choose to swim against the tide and reject the overwhelming will of the people, or they can get on board and work with President Trump,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a US citizen by birthright and the nation’s first Chinese American elected attorney general, said the lawsuit was personal for him.

“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,” he said.

“There is no legitimate legal debate on this question. But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own.”

What is birthright citizenship?

At issue in these cases is the right to citizenship granted to anyone born in the US, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. People in the United States on a tourist or other visa or in the country illegally can become the parents of a citizen if their child is born here.

It’s enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, supporters say. But Trump and allies dispute the reading of the amendment and say there need to be tougher standards on becoming a citizen.

The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them. Most other countries confer citizenship based on whether at least one parent — jus sanguinis, or “right of blood” — is a citizen, or have a modified form of birthright citizenship that may restrict automatic citizenship to children of parents who are on their territory legally.

What does Trump’s order say?

Trump’s order questions that the 14th Amendment extends citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States.

Ratified in 1868 in in the aftermath of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment says: “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.”

Trump’s order asserts that the children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It excludes the following people from automatic citizenship: those whose mothers were not legally in the United States and whose fathers were not US citizens or lawful permanent residents, and people whose mothers were in the country legally but on a temporary basis and whose fathers were not citizens or legal permanent residents.

It goes on to bar federal agencies from recognizing the citizenship of people in those categories. It takes effect 30 days from Tuesday, on Feb. 19.

It’s not clear whether the order would retroactively affect birthright citizens. It says that federal agencies “shall” not issue citizenship documents to the people it excludes or accept other documents from states or local governments.

What is the history of the issue?

The 14th Amendment did not always guarantee birthright citizenship to all US-born people. Congress did not authorize citizenship for all Native Americans born in the United States until 1924.

In 1898 an important birthright citizenship case unfolded in the US Supreme Court. The court held that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a US citizen because he was born in the country. After a trip abroad, he had faced denied reentry by the federal government on the grounds that he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

But some advocates of immigration restrictions have argued that while the case clearly applied to children born to parents who are both legal immigrants, it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status.

The issue of birthright citizenship arose in Arizona — one of the states suing to block Trump’s order — during 2011 when Republican lawmakers considered a bill that would have challenged automatic birthright citizenship. Supporters said then that the goal wasn’t to get every state in the nation to enact such a law, but rather to bring the dispute to the courts. The bill never made it out of the Legislature.

What has the reaction to Trump’s order been?

In addition to the states, the District of Columbia and San Francisco, immigrant rights groups are also suing to stop Trump’s order.

Chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts along with other immigrant rights advocates filed a suit in New Hampshire federal court.

The suit asks the court to find the order to be unconstitutional. It highlights the case of a woman identified as “Carmen,” who is pregnant but is not a citizen. The lawsuit says she has lived in the United States for more than 15 years and has a pending visa application that could lead to permanent status. She has no other immigration status, and the father of her expected child has no immigration status either, the suit says.

“Stripping children of the ‘priceless treasure’ of citizenship is a grave injury,” the suit says. “It denies them the full membership in US society to which they are entitled.”

In addition to New Jersey and the two cities, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin joined the lawsuit to stop the order.

Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington filed a separate suit in federal court challenging Trump’s order as well.


At least 4 dead and 1,300 evacuated after heavy rain in South Korea

At least 4 dead and 1,300 evacuated after heavy rain in South Korea
Updated 12 sec ago
Follow

At least 4 dead and 1,300 evacuated after heavy rain in South Korea

At least 4 dead and 1,300 evacuated after heavy rain in South Korea
  • The Interior and Safety Ministry says a collapsed overpass retaining wall in Osan killed one person on Wednesday
  • Parts of South Chungcheong province have seen up to 420 millimeters of rain
SEOUL: Two days of heavy downpours in South Korea have killed at least four people and forced more than 1,300 others to evacuate, officials said Thursday.
One person was killed when their car was buried by soil and concrete after a retaining wall of an overpass collapsed in Osan, just south of Seoul, during heavy rain on Wednesday, the Interior and Safety Ministry said.
Three other people were separately found dead Thursday in a submerged car, a stream, and a flooded basement in southern regions. Ministry officials said they were still investigating whether those deaths were directly caused by heavy rain.
The heavy rain has forced the evacuation of 1,382 people from their homes, the ministry said in a statement, adding 46 flights have been canceled.
Parts of southern South Chungcheong province have received up to 420 millimeters (16.5 inches) of rain since Wednesday, according to the ministry.

Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says

Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says
Updated 18 July 2025
Follow

Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says

Russian forces take control of three Ukrainian villages across multiple regions, defense ministry says
  • Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day
  • Moscow controls a little less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, a move that Kyiv and most Western countries reject as illegal

MOSCOW: Russian troops have taken control of three villages in three different parts of the frontline running through Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

Official Ukrainian reports of activity along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front disputed part of the Russian account, particularly concerning a key village in the southeast.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side.

The Russian Defense Ministry report named the three captured settlements as Kamianske in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Dehtiarne in northeastern Kharkiv region, and Popiv Yar in Donetsk region, the main theater of Russian operations.

Russian forces are engaged in a slow advance westward, mainly through Donetsk region, and Moscow announces the capture of new villages almost every day.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Vladyslav Voloshyn told the liga.net media outlet that holding Kamianske, southeast of the region’s main town of Zaporizhzhia, was important to keep that city safe from attack.

But Kamianske had been all but flattened by long periods of fighting, he said. Ukrainian forces had moved out of it and successfully attacked Russian troops whenever small groups periodically ventured into it.

“The Russians cannot go into the village and hold it,” Voloshyn was quoted as saying. “There is not a single dwelling left intact, not a single wall left standing, nothing to hold, nothing to enable you to take cover.”

There was no acknowledgement from Ukraine that Popiv Yar had changed hands — the village lies northeast of Pokrovsk, for months a focal point of Russian attacks in Donetsk region.

For at least a week, it has remained in the “grey zone” of uncertain control as reported by DeepState, a Ukrainian military blog based on open source accounts of the fighting. There was no news from Ukrainian officials of the situation at Dehtiarne.

On Wednesday, Russia’s military announced the capture of the village of Novohatske, southwest of Pokrovsk. Another Ukrainian military spokesperson, Viktor Trehubov, told public broadcaster Suspilne on Thursday that the village was in Russian hands.

Moscow controls a little less than 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and says it has incorporated four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson into Russia, a move that Kyiv and most Western countries reject as illegal.

In 2014, Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, also a claim widely disputed internationally


Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts

Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts
Updated 18 July 2025
Follow

Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts

Nationwide protests begin against Trump’s immigration crackdown and health care cuts
  • Protest actions held Thursday in more than 1,600 locations around the country
  • Major protests planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, Oakland in California, and Annapolis in Maryland

CHICAGO: Protests and events against President Donald Trump’s controversial policies that include mass deportations and cuts to Medicaid and other safety nets for poor people have started Thursday at more than 1,600 locations around the country.

The “Good Trouble Lives On” national day of action honors the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. Protests were being held along streets, at court houses and other public spaces. Organizers have called for them to be peaceful.

“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said during an online news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration ... as the rights, freedoms and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”

Public Citizen is a nonprofit with a stated mission of taking on corporate power. It is a member of a coalition of groups behind Thursday’s protests.

Major protests were planned in Atlanta and St. Louis, as well as Oakland, California, and Annapolis, Maryland.

Honoring Lewis’ legacy

Lewis first was elected to Congress in 1986. He died in 2020 at the age of 80 following an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

He was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis led some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was beaten by police, suffering a skull fracture.

Within days, King led more marches in the state, and President Lyndon Johnson pressed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that later became law.

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said in 2020 while commemorating the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Chicago will be the flagship city for Thursday’s protests as demonstrators are expected to rally downtown in the afternoon.

Betty Magness, executive vice president of the League of Women Voters Chicago and one of the organizers of Chicago’s event, said the rally will also include a candlelight vigil to honor Lewis.

Much of the rest of the rally will have a livelier tone, Magness said, adding “we have a DJ who’s gonna rock us with boots on the ground.”

Protesting Trump’s policies

Pushback against Trump so far in his second term has centered on deportations and immigration enforcement tactics

Earlier this month, protesters engaged in a tense standoff as federal authorities conducted mass arrests at two Southern California marijuana farms. One farmworker died after falling from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic raid.

Those raids followed Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard outside federal buildings and to protect immigration agents carrying out arrests on Los Angeles. On June 8, thousands of protesters began taking to the streets in Los Angeles.

And organizers of the June 14 “No Kings” demonstrations said millions of people marched in hundreds of events from New York to San Francisco. Demonstrators labeled Trump as a dictator and would-be king for marking his birthday with a military parade.

 


UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security

UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security
Updated 18 July 2025
Follow

UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security

UK signs treaty on defense, trade and migration with Germany as Europe bolsters security
  • Agreement commits both countries to boost investment and strengthen law-enforcement cooperation against people-smuggling gangs
  • Treaty builds on defense pact the two nations signed last year committing to closer co-operation against the growing threat from Russia

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a landmark treaty on Thursday that pledges to tighten defense ties, as European nations try to protect Ukraine, and themselves, from an aggressive Russia in the face of wavering support from President Donald Trump’s US-focused administration.

Merz said it was “a historic day for German-British relations” as he signed an agreement that also commits the two countries to boost investment and strengthen law-enforcement cooperation against criminal people-smuggling gangs using the English Channel.

“We want to work together more closely, particularly after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union,” Merz said. “It is overdue for us to conclude such a treaty with each other.”

A partnership with a purpose

The treaty builds on a defense pact the UK and Germany, two of the biggest European supporters of Ukraine, signed last year committing to closer co-operation against the growing threat from Russia.

It includes a promise to “assist one another, including by military means, in case of an armed attack on the other,” though it’s unclear what practical impact that will have, since both countries are NATO members and bound by the alliance’s mutual defense pact.

Starmer said the treaty — signed at London’s V&A Museum, which is named after Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert — sealed a “partnership with a purpose.”

“We see the scale of the challenges our continent faces today, and we intend to meet them head on,” Starmer said during a joint news confernce at an Airbus defense and space factory north of London.

The UK-Germany treaty follows agreements signed during a state visit last week by President Emmanuel Macron, in which France and Britain pledged to coordinate their nuclear deterrents for the first time.

Germany does not have nuclear weapons. The treaty with Britain says the countries will “maintain a close dialogue on defense issues of mutual interest ... including on nuclear issues.”

The treaty stressed a “shared commitment to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, and underpinned by enhanced European contributions” — a nod to Trump, who has demanded European NATO members greatly increase military spending. Germany and the UK have both promised to raise defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP in the coming years.

Merz, making his first trip to the UK since taking office in May, said it was “no coincidence” he traveled to London a week after Macron.

“The E3 – Great Britain, France and Germany — are converging in their positions on foreign policy, on security policy, on migration policy, but also on economic policy issues,” he said.

Weapons for Ukraine

Merz and Starmer discussed ways to boost European support for Ukraine, following Trump’s announcement of a plan to bolster Kyiv’s stockpile by selling American weapons to NATO allies who would in turn send arms to Kyiv.

Merz signaled that those plans are still a work in progress, saying it might take “days, perhaps weeks” before weapons reach Ukraine.

He said that “above all, we need clarity on how weapons systems that are given up from the European side will be replaced by the US”

During the trip the leaders announced that German defense startup Stark, which makes drones for Ukraine, will open a factory in England. They also agreed to jointly produce defense exports such as Boxer armored vehicles and Typhoon jets, and to develop a deep precision strike missile in the next decade.

Starmer also praised Merz for his help curbing the smuggling gangs that brought 37,000 people across the English Channel from France in small boats in 2024, and more than 22,000 so far in 2025. Dozens have died attempting the journey.

Berlin agreed last year to make facilitating the smuggling of migrants to the UK a criminal offense, a move that will give law enforcement more powers to investigate the supply and storage of small boats to be used for the crossings.

Merz committed to adopting the law change by the end of the year, a move Starmer said “is hugely welcome.”

Student exchange trips

Starmer has worked to improve relations with Britain’s neighbors, strained by the UK’s acrimonious departure from the European Union in 2020. He has sought to rebuild ties strained by years of ill-tempered wrangling over Brexit terms, and worked to reduce trade barriers and to strengthen defense cooperation.

But he has ruled out rejoining the 27-nation bloc’s single market or customs union, and has been cool to the idea of a youth mobility agreement with the EU.

Britain and Germany agreed on a more limited arrangement that will make it easier for schoolchildren to go on exchange trips.

“I am glad we were able to reach an agreement so that schoolchildren and students can come to Britain more easily in the future, and the other way round can come to Germany more easily, so that the young generation in particular has an opportunity to get to know both countries better,” Merz said.

 


5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
Updated 18 July 2025
Follow

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
  • The men , who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos
  • Eswatini is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The others are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, and South Sudan

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are in prison, where they will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.

Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency.

In cell phone messages to The Associated Press on Thursday, Mdluli said it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the US Department of Homeland

Security said, describing them as “uniquely barbaric.”

Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.

Here’s what we know and don’t know about the deportations:

A new country for deportees

Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country.

The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a US military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The US also described them as violent criminals.

Eswatini’s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the US.

Local media reported they are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, outside the country’s administrative capital of Mbabane, which includes Eswatini’s top maximum-security prison.

The men’s fate is unclear

The Eswatini government said the men are “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The US and Eswatini governments would work with the UN migration agency to do that, it said.

The UN agency — the International Organization for Migration or IOM — said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate.”

Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to US claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back.

It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.

“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the US, which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were “off of American soil” when she announced their deportations.

Another secretive deal

There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the US and Eswatini remain classified.”

Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the US to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.

Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the US in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs.

The Trump administration has also said it’s seeking more deportation deals with other countries.

Rights groups have questioned the countries the US has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments.

Eswatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.

Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.