ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —  New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is pushing back just one day into President Donald Trump’s second term. The commander in chief signed dozens of executive orders hours after taking the oath of office Monday.  

One of the orders attempts to eliminate the longstanding aspect of birthright citizenship. AG Torrez joined 17 other states and Washington, D.C. in a lawsuit to stop that from happening. 

“Targeting families and kids and redefining what it means to be an American is just not who we are. We’re better than that,” Torrez said. 

President Trump titled the order “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” It’s facing a lot of controversy because birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. 

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution declares all people born in the United States are citizens. It’s been in place for more than 150 years, since the Civil War. 

President Trump argues the amendment “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.” Under his executive order, it would limit birthright citizenship to people who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or one who is a permanent U.S. resident. 

Meaning, if someone enters the U.S. illegally and has a child within U.S. borders, that child would not be a U.S. citizen

Torrez argues the order is unconstitutional and un-American. 

“We have to remember what it means for a president to threaten to take away the most basic guarantees of people who are as committed to this country as anyone there is,” Torrez continued. “Frankly, in my judgment, there’s no such thing as a birthright citizen. We don’t have that in this country. We have citizens.” 

Torrez along with Democratic attorneys general in 17 other states and Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit Tuesday, challenging Trump’s executive order. The goal is to invalidate it and block any actions to enforce it, which would be up to the courts. 

“We would get a federal judge to issue an order ordering federal agencies not to comply with the executive order. Hopefully, that would be a permanent injunction, and that would be the end of it,” Torrez continued. “Certainly, the parties would have an opportunity, if they lost, to appeal it potentially to the circuit court or even to the United States Supreme Court.”

A handful of other states have filed a similar lawsuit, along with several civil rights groups like the ACLU. 

Although executive orders have the force of the law, that doesn’t mean they’re untouchable. 

“There are still some checks and balances. Most likely people bringing cases to court to challenge the legality of an executive order,” UNM Political Science Professor Timothy Krebs said. 

Taking legal action is exactly what happened Tuesday. 

“In the case of birthright citizenship, people were anticipating, governors and so forth, were anticipating that [President Trump] was going to do this, so they’ve mobilized ahead of time, so they’re going to file a suit to block it from going into effect,” Krebs said.

Typically, executive orders take place immediately, but this one won’t. Instead, it is set to go into effect on Feb. 19 and impact any babies born starting that day.  

But Krebs explained, for now, we’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out in the courts.