WASHINGTON, DC – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed an amicus brief urging a federal court to invalidate an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
The Equal Justice Society and the League of Women Voters joined the NAACP to fight the executive order that would revoke both birthright citizenship for those born in the United States and undocumented or temporary legal individuals, as reported by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights noted this brief is the only one that highlights racial justice, and charges that birthright citizenship is not a political debate but rather is rooted in the Reconstruction Amendments, which protect the civil rights of excluded communities such as Black Americans.
This brief urged that this executive order would erode democracy and prevent people of color from participating, stated the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and if allowed to stand, would reshape the electorate and allow the racial hierarchy to flourish.
LCCR lawyer Olivia Sedwick said, “The Reconstruction Amendments were designed to ensure that Black and Brown people had the same rights and access as white people in this country. Together, they ensure that this nation would never re-live the horrors of slavery and the era of Dred Scott.”
“This executive order is not only unconstitutional, but it is deeply ahistorical and regressive.” – Olivia Sedwick, lawyer, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Sedwick added, “This executive order is not only unconstitutional, but it is deeply ahistorical and regressive. If it is allowed to stand, this nation can no longer hold itself out to be the bastion of freedom and democracy to the world.”
The NAACP chief general counsel Janette McCarthy Wallace commented, “This executive order is a direct assault on the Constitution and the fundamental rights it guarantees.”
This attempt at stripping birthright citizenship from those born right here in the U.S. threatens to bring back the shameful past and will harm people of color, added LCCR, noting this will bar future generations in the democratic voting process and will tear down democracy.
“This administration’s attempt to blatantly disregard the Constitution is deeply chilling, a direct attack on Black Americans, and fundamentally at odds with the promise of American democracy and personhood,” argued Celina Stewart, chief executive officer of the League of Women Voters of the U.S., adding “The Fourteenth Amendment is unequivocal and clear: any person born in the United States is a US citizen.”
LCCR, in its statement, quoted Mona Tawatao, legal director of the Equal Justice Society, who said, “Birthright citizenship is foundational to ensuring Black Americans’ humanity, equality, and full place in our democracy.”
Tawatao added, “This is what the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended; the executive order to revoke this sacred right should alarm everyone who cares about equal rights and equal protection under the law.”
The executive order is anti-democratic and puts the United States in a regressive state, reports LCCR, urging the order be invalidated to protect people of color who have historically not been protected by the law.
