Washington, DC – In a new interview with NBC News’ Lawrence Hurley and MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong shares his story as the son of immigrants and condemns Donald Trump’s promise to end birthright citizenship. AG Tong vows to be the first to sue against Trump’s discriminatory policy, because for him, this fight is personal.

NBC News writes, “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.”

AG Tong shared, “‘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…I would be the first to sue,’ Tong promised.”

The article continues, “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.”

“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.’”

NBC News concluded, “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.”

AG Tong also sat down with MSNBC to further elaborate on the irreversible damage ending birthright citizenship would do to American society.

“When Donald Trump talks about denying birthright citizenship and attacking anchor babies, he’s talking about me and so many others,” AG Tong said. “And when John Eastman, one of his functionaries, talks about reversing birthright citizenship for people that already have citizenship I mean, that’s a direct attack on me and so many others in this country who are already making contributions.

“How many people have come here, contributed so much for the economy, they had kids here, they had they built families, they built they built type companies here, they built businesses here, and now they are contributing so much. And somebody says they’re gonna come in and reverse their citizenship, it’s madness.”

AG Tong concluded, “Immigrants are everywhere – interwoven into every facet of American life, and it’s not it’s not so simple to just say, ‘oh, these immigrants, we don’t like those immigrants, those undocumented immigrants so we’re gonna cut them out.’ 70% of undocumented households meaning households that have an undocumented person, 70% of those are a mixed status family.

“So you’ve got citizens, noncitizens, people who have temporary status, TPS, H1B, and it’s so this is utterly unworkable and we do great damage, not just to our society and American families and our states, but to our economy.”

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