TAMPA, Fla. — There’s been cause for concern from some families in Florida over President Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship.
“I've tried more than once to legalize my status,” one woman told ABC Action News.
ABC Action News spoke to the woman who came to the US from Mexico when she was four years old and later relocated to the Tampa Bay area.
We aren't showing her face or identifying her due to concerns for her family's safety.
"My mom, she wanted something better for us, and my grandparents did too,” she said.
While she's an undocumented immigrant and does not have legal status in the U.S., her children were born in the Tampa Bay area.
She fears if this executive order were to stand what it could mean for her children and other family members' citizenship status.
“Looking at it from my kids or my future kids that I might have, it's not right,” she said. “My kids were born here, and this country's supposed to be free, so why take their rights away?”
Now, a brewing legal battle boils down to the 14th Amendment.
"Birthright citizenship is from the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which clarifies if you were born here, that you are a U.S. citizen, and that is true no matter the status of your parents,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a Professor of Law at Stetson.
However, an executive order issued Monday states: "The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”
"We think we have good grounds, but you could be right. We’ll find out,” President Trump said while signing the order.
Torres-Spelliscy said versions of this have already been litigated up to the Supreme Court.
"One of the very rare examples of this is if you were born to a foreign diplomat, then you are the citizenship of that diplomat's country, not the U.S., but I don't think you can expand that type of rare exception to all of these potential children of undocumented migrants,” said Torres-Spelliscy.
Torres-Spelliscy said this executive order strikes her as being unconstitutional.
"There are limits on what presidential power can do, and one of the things that presidential power cannot do is change a part of the U.S. Constitution,” said Torres-Spelliscy.
Now, it’s a waiting game to see how the situation plays out in the days to come.
"We're here because we want to make something better for ourselves and our future and our children,” the woman told ABC Action News.
"Why are you not giving us our money back? You owe it to us — just pay us.”
After waiting over eight months for a refund from a medical clinic, an ABC Action News viewer reached out to consumer investigative reporter Susan El-Khoury for help.
