On Tuesday, attorneys general from 18 states took legal action to challenge President Donald Trump’s attempt to scrap birthright citizenship—a long-standing immigration policy that ensures any child born on U.S. soil is a citizen, no matter their parents’ immigration status.
Trump’s executive order, which stretches around 700 words and was dropped late Monday, is essentially a realization of a promise he made during his campaign. However, the future of this move is anything but guaranteed, as the attorneys general from those 18 states, along with two cities, are gearing up to fight back in court to stop the president’s decision.
Donald Trump just signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.
— Christian Heiens
This is one of the most important issues he can pick a fight on. It will be challenged immediately, and we need to stand with him every step of the way in this fight. pic.twitter.com/cnAafJcgVC(@ChristianHeiens) January 21, 2025
The lawsuit claims that the executive order signed by Trump on Monday goes against the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which grants citizenship rights to all children born in the United States. “Despite a President’s broad powers to set immigration policy, however, the Citizenship Stripping Order falls far outside the legal bounds of the President’s authority,” the lawsuit says.
This case could set the stage for the first big Supreme Court battle over Trump’s second-term plans. The states have taken their fight to a federal court in Massachusetts, so any appeal from that court will wind its way through the First Circuit Court of Appeals, where all the judges are Democratic appointees.
Historically, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed birthright citizenship, and there’s also a federal law—passed by Congress before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868—that clearly states children born on U.S. soil have the right to citizenship.
“The president’s entitled to put forth a policy agenda that he sees fit,” New Jersey Democratic Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who is co-leading the new lawsuit, told CNN.
“When it comes to birthright citizenship – something that’s been part of the fabric of this nation for centuries, that’s been in the Constitution for 157 years since the Civil War, that’s been upheld by the Supreme Court twice – the president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, rewrite the Constitution and upend the rule of law,” he added.
Eighteen states, along with the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are pushing for a preliminary order to block the policy before the Trump administration has a chance to put it into action.
This lawsuit marks the second challenge to the policy following Trump’s controversial order. The American Civil Liberties Union, alongside other civil rights and immigration advocacy groups, filed a similar suit on Monday in a federal court in New Hampshire, which also falls under the jurisdiction of the First Circuit.