WASHINGTON — For Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to end birthright citizenship is more than just a provocative anti-immigrant policy likely to be blocked by courts.
It’s personal.
Tong, 51, a Democrat who has served as the state’s top legal official since 2019, is the son of immigrants who came to the United States from China and Taiwan.
He is the first member of his family to have been born on U.S. soil and is the first Asian American to be elected to statewide office in Connecticut.
“I grew up working side by side with my parents in our family’s Chinese restaurant, and in one generation I’ve gone from that Chinese restaurant kitchen to be the attorney general of the state of Connecticut,” he said in an interview. “That only happens one place in this world, and that’s in America.”
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to take action to end birthright citizenship on day one of his second term in office, a move that would immediately prompt legal challenges.
“I would be the first to sue,” Tong promised.
He is one of 23 Democratic state attorneys general who are likely to be regular opponents of Trump on various issues, ranging from immigration and LGBTQ rights to environmental policy and abortion, just as many were in the first Trump administration.
Likewise, Republican attorneys general routinely sued to block President Joe Biden’s policies, notching up major victories on issues like student loan debt forgiveness and a Covid vaccine-or-test mandate for businesses.
The fight over birthright citizenship might be one that challengers have a good chance of winning, even with a conservative Supreme Court that includes three justices appointed by Trump.
The vast majority of legal scholars think there is no genuine legal dispute over the guarantee of birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment states.
James Ho, now a Trump-appointed judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who is considered a contender for the Supreme Court if Trump has a vacancy, wrote an article in 2006 rejecting the claim that the children of undocumented immigrants should not be considered citizens.
“Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. That birthright is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers,” he wrote.
Ho himself was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States with his parents.
Trump has said he will sign an executive order that would ensure children born to parents who do not have legal status in the U.S. will not be considered U.S. citizens.
At least one parent would need to be a citizen or legal resident for a child to receive birthright citizenship, Trump said in a video announcing the plan last year. He indicated the policy would not apply retroactively.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the brewing plans to counter his efforts. The administration could try to implement the policy, thereby kicking off a legal fight, by ordering federal agencies to prevent people from obtaining passports or Social Security numbers.
Supporters of limiting birthright citizenship say the language in the 14th Amendment referring to citizenship being awarded to people “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States does not include the children of undocumented immigrants.
Conservatives have embraced the idea of declaring the act of migrants crossing the southern border as a form of invasion — a move that could have them treated more like enemy combatants than migrants. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has taken that approach, leading to conflicts with the Biden administration.
A declaration along those lines by Trump could be used to defend a policy seeking to end automatic birthright citizenship, an approach Judge Ho outlined in remarks made after the November election that seem to backtrack on his earlier view.
He said that “birthright citizenship obviously doesn’t apply in case of war or invasion.”
Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is also gearing up to sue Trump on birthright citizenship and other policies, said calling immigration a form of invasion reflects “a white nationalist view” that is not supported by the facts.
“I don’t think that anyone’s theory about so-called invasion … should fly in the courts,” she added.
From Tong’s perspective, any limitation on birthright citizenship would be a violation of the 14th Amendment.
It is “beyond clear” what the law states, he said, and it will “get real when people’s lives and communities are impacted, or worse, destroyed” if Trump’s plan goes into effect.
He was quick to cite the experience of his parents, who “ran for their lives” before reaching the United States and settling in Connecticut.
“Let’s just cut the crap and acknowledge that we’re Americans. Everybody is as American as anybody else,” Tong added. “I mean, it strikes to the core of our constitutional foundation, the 14th Amendment.”
