Joined by her colleagues from across the Northeast, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is detailing a flurry of court actions her office and others are taking in the face of multiple executive orders issued by the Trump administration.
Hours before a hearing on one of their lawsuits, the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut spoke about the actions they’re taking in hopes of halting the president’s executive orders.
At a press conference Friday morning, Campbell, Connecticut’s William Tong and New Jersey’s Matthew Platkin, said the latest hearing is part of a challenge to an order moving to end birthright citizenship – something Campbell and others moved to file against within a day of the executive order being signed.
Hours after being sworn-in, President Trump issued dozens of EO’s, including one seeking to, in-part, bar federal agencies from issuing “documents recognizing United States citizenship” to individuals born to mothers who were either “unlawfully present” in the U.S. at the time of birth, or if their presence was “lawful but temporary,” among other criteria.
It’s something Campbell argues runs headlong into the 14th Amendment- a view shared by at least 17 other AGs
“The president cannot change the Constitution with a Sharpie or sham executive order,” the MA AG said ahead of a hearing in Boston on the matter. “Our country's founders drafted a document - an essential document - that ensures each branch of government is checked by another, to ensure one does not become too powerful. There is a well-established process for amending the Constitution in our country. Civics 101 teaches us it takes an act of Congress and ratification from 38 states to change the Constitution. What the president is attempting to do is illegal.”
Speaking at Campbell’s office, the group spoke to the constitutional amendment’s roots in the Reconstruction era, with AG Tong touching on his own experience as his family’s first American born.
“They were not citizens when I was born, but because I was born an American, my parents were able to open a restaurant, and they worked themselves seven days a week, 12-to-15 hours a day - they worked themselves sick,” he said. “I saw them do it because I worked side-by-side with them in that restaurant, and in one generation, I went from that hot, Chinese restaurant kitchen to being the Attorney General the state of Connecticut. That is America's promise. That is what we're fighting for today.”
Tong has previously argued ending birthright citizenship would cause chaos across the country, imperiling the future of children born without legal status and their parents
Friday’s actions came on the heels of a judge in Seattle, Washington, issuing a preliminary injunction on the order, following a similar decision made by a judge in Maryland.
Arguing against the Maryland suit, in a statement reported by the Associated Press, the federal government contends “The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to, inter alia: the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws.”
Optimistic about the coalition’s lawsuit in Boston, Campbell told reporters more news would be coming as she and others file a preliminary injunction in Rhode Island against the federal funding freeze.
“All of us are a part of that case, looking to not only enforce the temporary restraining order that would block this federal funding freeze that affects every part of our constituents’ lives, and to ensure that it is actually enforced, but also, we will come back together at some point later today as well - a lot happening today - to take on the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and his minions, to ensure they are not … taking information illegally from various agencies and using that to harm our people.”
The federal funding freeze, even with the original White House memo sparking it rescinded, has led to municipalities and organizations across the country trying to secure or track down federal dollars appropriated for them.
“…trillions of dollars of spending that provides health care to 75 million Americans, pays for seniors’ nursing homes, funds law enforcement,” said New Jersey AG Platkin. “They actually cut, in my state, they ended Drug Trafficking Enforcement. They told millions of kids who benefit from Head Start … and their parents that ‘We don't know if you're going to have wrap-around services.’ That's what they did last week, and less than a day after they did that, we were in court, and once again, a court said, ‘No.’ So again, we are doing our jobs.”
