On Tuesday, North Carolina joined a lawsuit to prevent President Donald Trump's executive order that intends to overturn birthright citizenship.
The complaint was filed by 18 state attorneys general in Massachusetts federal court, and calls for the court to declare Trump's order unconstitutional and stop it from going into effect.
The lawsuit states that Trump's executive order violates the birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For over a century, the federal government has upheld that the clause means that someone born on American soil to non-citizen parents is guaranteed automatic citizenship.
The birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth 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 executive order, which Trump signed on his inauguration day, states that the Fourteenth amendment was never intended to offer birthright citizenship to non-citizens. The executive order argues that those who are non-citizens at birth are not automatically subject to the country's jurisdiction, and therefore should not be afforded automatic citizenship.
Trump signed 26 executive orders on his inauguration day, including a national declaration of emergency at the Southern border, a requirement that federal employees return to in-person work and the elimination of federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies and positions.
