ACLU assails South Dakota Attorney General's support of Trump executive order on birthright citizenship
South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley this week joined a group of 17 other state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of President Trump’s executive order that seeks to strip certain babies born in the United States of their U.S. citizenship.
The friend-of-the-court brief asks a federal court to reject the motion brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrants’ rights advocates in a case challenging the executive order.
While the executive order remains temporarily blocked under an order issued by a judge who called it “blatantly unconstitutional” last month, litigation continues with three federal hearings scheduled this week.
“Most of us can agree that the federal government needs to do much better on immigration policy and identify real solutions that are orderly, humane and fair. But denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” ACLU of South Dakota Executive Director Libby Skarin said. “By signing onto this amicus brief, South Dakota is sending a message of exclusion not only to children in our state directly impacted by the order, but also to many others who will have their citizenship questioned because of their race or who their parents are.”
Birthright citizenship is the principle that every baby born in the United States is a U.S. citizen. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees the citizenship of all children born in the United States (with the extremely narrow exception of children of foreign diplomats) regardless of race, color or ancestry. Specifically, it 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.”
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, overturning the 1857 Dred Scott decision that denied Black Americans the rights and protections of U.S. citizenship. In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that children born in the United States to immigrant parents were entitled to U.S. citizenship, and the principle has remained an undisturbed constitutional bedrock for more than a century.
Attorney General Jackley’s support of the Trump administration’s unlawful executive order is a waste of state resources and deeply harmful.
“Every child born in the United States should be born with the same rights as every other child — and that’s why the U.S. Constitution ensures that no politician can ever decide who among those born in our country is worthy of citizenship,” Skarin said. “Trump’s executive order directly opposes our Constitution, values and history, and it would create a permanent, multigenerational subclass of people born in the U.S. but who are denied full rights.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota is a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU of South Dakota is part of a three-state chapter that also includes North Dakota and Wyoming. The team in South Dakota is supported by staff in those states.
