Illinois joined a list of states filing a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s new executive order aiming to end birthright citizenship.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced the lawsuit Tuesday, arguing Trump’s order violates the constitutional rights to which all children born in the U.S. are entitled.

“That one of Donald Trump’s first day[s] in office as president should be so diametrically opposed to our values as Americans is incredibly disappointing, though not surprising. The children born in the U.S. to immigrants are entitled to the rights and privileges that go along with U.S. citizenship,” Raoul said in a statement. “We need to discuss bipartisan commonsense immigration reforms, but denying birthright citizenship, which dates back centuries and has been upheld twice by the U.S. Supreme Court, is not the solution. As Attorney General, and as the proud son of Haitian immigrants, I will continue to stand with my fellow attorneys general to defend the constitutional rights of all children born in this country.”

Attorneys general from more than a dozen other states also sued to block Trump’s move.

The order would end a decades-old immigration policy known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status.

Trump’s roughly 700-word executive order, issued late Monday, amounts to a fulfillment of something he’s talked about during the presidential campaign. But whether it succeeds is far from certain amid what is likely to be a lengthy legal battle over the president’s immigration policies.

Here’s a closer look at birthright citizenship, Trump’s executive order and reaction to it:

What is birthright citizenship?

Birthright citizenship means anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. People, for instance, in the United States on a tourist or other visa or in the country illegally can become the parents of a citizen if their child is born here.

It’s been in place for decades and enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, supporters say. But Trump and allies dispute the reading of the amendment and say there need to be tougher standards on becoming a citizen.

What does Trump’s order say?

The order questions that the 14th Amendment extends citizenship automatically to anyone born in the United States.

The 14th Amendment was born in the aftermath of the Civil War and ratified in 1868. It says: “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.”

Trump’s order excludes the following people from automatic citizenship: those whose mothers were not legally in the United States and whose fathers were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents; people whose mothers were in the country legally but on a temporary basis and whose fathers were not citizens or legal permanent residents.

It goes on to bar federal agencies from recognizing the citizenship of people in those categories. It takes effect 30 days from Tuesday, on Feb. 19.

What is the history of the issue?

The 14th Amendment did not always guarantee birthright citizenship to all U.S.-born people. Congress did not authorize citizenship for all Native Americans born in the United States, for instance, until 1924.

In 1898 an important birthright citizenship case unfolded in the U.S. Supreme Court. The court held that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the country. After a trip abroad, he had faced denied reentry by the federal government on the grounds that he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

But some advocates of immigration restrictions have argued that while the case clearly applied to children born to parents who are both legal immigrants, it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status.

What has the reaction to Trump’s order been?

More than a dozen states, plus the District of Columbia and San Francisco, sued in federal court to block Trump’s order.

Raoul and multiple other states said the executive order means, for the first time since the 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, that babies born each month who would have been citizens will no longer enjoy the privileges and benefits of citizenship.

“If allowed to stand, the infants stripped of their United States citizenship under the executive order will lose their most basic rights and will be forced to live under the threat of deportation. They will lose eligibility for a wide range of federal benefits programs, including their ability to obtain a Social Security number and, as they age, to work lawfully. They will also lose their rights to vote, serve on juries, and to secure passports. Despite the Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship, thousands of children will – for the first time – lose their ability to fully and fairly participate in American society as a citizen,” Raoul said in a statement.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state plans to “fight back.”

“Here in Illinois we are going to stand up, we are going to fight back. We are going to follow the law and we are going to make sure they are following the law,” he said.

New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matt Platkin said Tuesday that presidents might have broad authority but they are not kings.

“The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period,” he said.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a U.S. citizen by birthright and the nation’s first Chinese American elected attorney general, said the lawsuit was personal for him.

“The 14th Amendment says what it means, and it means what it says —- if you are born on American soil, you are an American. Period. Full stop,” he said. “There is no legitimate legal debate on this question. But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own.”

Not long after Trump signed the order, immigrant rights groups filed suit to stop it.

Chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts along with other immigrant rights advocates filed a suit in New Hampshire federal court.

The suit asks the court to find the order to be unconstitutional. It highlights the case of a woman identified as “Carmen,” who is pregnant but is not a citizen. The lawsuit says she has lived in the United States for more than 15 years and has a pending visa application that could lead to permanent status. She has no other immigration status, and the father of her expected child has no immigration status either, the suit says.

“Stripping children of the ‘priceless treasure’ of citizenship is a grave injury,” the suit said. “It denies them the full membership in U.S. society to which they are entitled.”

Other states that have filed suit include California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

More than 100 schools, colleges and daycares across Northeastern Illinois have announced closures or shifts to e-learning Tuesday as dangerously cold wind chills as low as -30 sweep across the Chicago area.

The closures range from the city to the suburbs, including elementary, middle and high schools in Palos Hills, Oak Lawn, Lyons, Calumet City, Crystal Lake, Elgin, Carpentersville, Antioch and Grayslake.

According to Chicago Public Schools 2024-25 calendar, CPS students had an already scheduled day off Tuesday for “Teacher Institute Day.”

Multiple private schools and daycares were also closed, the Emergency Closing Center reported. The latest list of closures can be found here (NOTE: If you are accessing this link from our app, please go to your mobile browser).

The cold also forced Amtrak to cancel some trains lines in and out of Chicago, including The Wolverine, The Borealis and the Hiawatha, and led to more than 40 cancellations at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

NBC 5 reporter Lisa Chavarria early Tuesday said inside the airport, it didn’t feel much warmer.

“Employees even have their coats, hats and gloves on,” Chavarria said. “With it being -7 here, it’s frigid inside.”

As of 5:20 a.m., temperatures across Northeastern Illinois were below zero, the NBC 5 Storm Team said, with readings ranging from -5 to -10 degrees. Wind chills were even colder, NBC 5 Meteorologist Alicia Roman said, with “feels-like” temperatures of -29 in DeKalb, -27 in DuPage and Morris, -24 in Waukegan and -20 in Kankakee.

“Bundle up from head to toe” NBC 5 Meteorologist Alicia Roman said early Tuesday morning. “The Arctic cold will peak this morning….We are in the heart of the brutal cold right now.”

According to the National Weather Service, an extreme cold warning was in effect until 12 p.m. for Lake, McHenry, DeKalb, Kane and LaSalle Counties in Illinois, and Kenosha County in Wisconsin. In those parts, dangerously cold wind chills around 30 degrees below zero “could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.”

In DuPage, Cook, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee Counties in Illinois and across parts of Northwest Indiana, a cold weather advisory was in effect until 2 p.m., the NWS said.

“The coldest wind chills are expected through this morning,” the NWS said. “Winds chills down between -20°F to -35°F can be expected area wide under this arctic air mass. If you must go out: cover all exposed skin as frostbite can occur in under 20-30 minutes.”

Tuesday’s high temperature in the afternoon will be in the single digits for most areas, Roman said, with wind chills easing up slightly, between -10 and -20. Some relief was on the way Wednesday, with highs in the 20s, Roman said.

“A high of 25 will feel a lot warmer than the -25 we are feeling right now,” Roman said, of Wednesday’s conditions.

Wednesday could also see chances for scattered snow showers “at any point of the day,” Roman said, though totals aren’t expected to be more than an inch

By the weekend, temperatures will be above-average, Roman said, climbing into the 30s.

More than 50 Donald Trump supporters from Illinois will get their federal rap sheets wiped clean after the new president’s Day 1 signing of about 1,500 pardons related to the notorious riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Dozens of Trump’s supporters from the Chicago area and other parts of the state ended up in the dragnet during the U.S. Justice Department’s enormous, four-year investigation into the failed effort to overturn Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.

A Chicago Sun-Times review of federal court records found 43 of the 53 defendants from Illinois had been convicted and sentenced in cases stemming from the Capitol insurrection by the time Trump took office Monday and carried out his campaign promise to help people he described as “hostages” of politicized federal law-enforcement.

The lawyer for one of the defendants — former Chicago Police Officer Karol J. Chwiesiuk — welcomed Trump’s decision as “the right thing to do.”

“It was a witch hunt,” the lawyer, Nishay Sanan of Chicago, said of the Jan. 6 cases. “This was the Democrats’ attempt to go after Trump and his supporters. Why didn’t anyone go after the people who burned down Portland and Minneapolis? Because they’re all Democrats.”

Kevin J. Lyons of Inverness — who received one of the longest prison sentences among the Illinois defendants, at 51 months — replied to a request for comment from a reporter Monday evening with a profanity.

According to court records, Lyons wrongly entered the Capitol and took a photo of a plaque outside then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. He was found guilty of all the charges lodged against him, although a judge later tossed a count of obstruction of an official proceeding following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Fischer v. United States.

Lyons was released from prison last August, records show.

“Go f— yourself,” he told a reporter via text message.

Trump commuted the sentences of 14 Jan. 6 defendants, including Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys militia, and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the anti-government Oath Keepers.

According to the “proclamation” on Monday from Trump, he had acted to “grant a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” And he also ordered his new attorney general to drop all pending cases.

The Jan. 6 convicts from Illinois came from all over the state and also included a retired Chicago firefighter and a onetime CEO from the northwest suburbs.

Chwiesiuk’s lawyer, Sanan, said he hoped his client now could be reinstated as a Chicago cop and he bemoaned how then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police leadership in the Democratic-dominated city “made a mockery of Karol” when he was arrested and charged for going to Washington four years ago.

Sanan also represented other Jan. 6 defendants from Illinois, including Chwiesiuk’s sister and Robert Giacchetti of Crystal Lake. Giacchetti used his body to push against a law enforcement officer, then broke equipment owned by the Associated Press and pushed over a camera and tripod, striking a journalist.

He pleaded guilty to a count of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. His sentencing had been set for June.

In another highly publicized case, retired firefighter Joseph Pavlik joined rioters who spent more than two hours assaulting officers in an area of the Capitol known as “The Tunnel” and was sentenced to two months in prison.

The first person from the Chicago area who faced federal charges was former CEO Bradley Rukstales of Inverness, who pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing inside a Capitol building and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Rukstales admitted that he threw a chair in the direction of officers who had previously retreated and formed a defensive line.

Rukstales did not return messages but on X on Sunday, he posted that a presidential pardon would represent a “righteous gift” to him, and recently he expressed hope that he and other “J6ers” would receive reparations.

Tom Schuba is a reporter and editor covering criminal justice issues for the Sun-Times. Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter for WBEZ. Jon Seidel writes about federal courts and legal affairs for the Sun-Times.