Washington DC: US President Donald Trump has been sued by a coalition of Democratic-leaning states and civil rights groups over his plan to end birthright citizenship in the United States. Several separate lawsuits came within hours after Trump took office and quickly unveiled a phalanx of executive orders he hopes will reshape American immigration.

The first two cases were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organizations and an expectant mother in the hours after Trump signed the executive order, kicking off the first major court fight of his administration.

The two other lawsuits were brought by 22 Democratic-led states along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, in federal courts in Boston and Seattle. The cases asserted that the President had overstepped his authority and violated the US Constitution by trying to eliminate the automatic granting of citizenship to anyone born on US soil.

If allowed to stand, Trump's order would for the first time deny more than 150,000 children born annually in the United States the right to citizenship, said the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.

"President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights," she said in a statement.

Anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen at birth, which derives from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment which was added to the US Constitution in 1868.