President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship has drawn the ire of nearly half the country's attorney's generals.
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have sued the Trump administration, stating that Trump's executive order violates the 14th Amendment.
"The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period," said New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, according to the Associated Press.
The opening line of the 14th Amendment states: "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 says what it means, and it means what it says —- if you are born on American soil, you are an American. Period. Full stop," the AP quoted Connecticut Attorney General William Tong. "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."
Trump, in his executive order, states that the 14th Amendement does not extend birthright citizenship. "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 states.
"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," said White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields, according to the AP.
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Amendment was, in-part, meant to address the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, according to history.com. Scott was an enslaved person who sued for his freedom while living in a free state. The ruled against him, stating that he was not a citizen but someone else's property.
"The court's decision incensed abolitionists, gave momentum to the anti-slavery movement and served as a stepping stone to the Civil War," the website states.
