Democratic attorneys general in 22 states and the District of Columbia launched the first legal challenge to President Trump’s second term agenda on Tuesday, less than a day after Trump issued an order seeking to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.
In separate lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and the Western District of Washington, the attorneys general said Trump’s order violated the 14th Amendment, which gives those born in the United States citizenship.
“The Constitution, federal law, and Supreme Court precedent all make clear that the children who would be impacted by this executive order are United States citizens,” said Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D), one of those filing the suit. “This attempt to deny them citizenship in blatant violation of the Constitution should be rejected.”
The order to end birthright citizenship was one of the more than 40 executive orders Trump issued in the hours after he was sworn in.
The order bars U.S. government agencies from issuing documents recognizing citizenship to anyone born in the United States to a mother who was unlawfully present when the birth took place. The order also applies to children of mothers who were in the country lawfully, but on a temporary basis.
In both cases, the order assumes the child’s father is not an American citizen.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, defines United States citizenship and bars states from passing laws that “abridge the privileges or immunities” of American citizens without due process.
“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,” the amendment’s opening section reads.
The attorneys general suing to block Trump’s order argued it would have steep consequences for citizens seeking to vote, travel abroad, secure housing, access health care and look for work.
“Birthright citizenship has allowed America to become the vibrant and dynamic home to families from all corners of this planet,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), who joined the suit filed in Washington State, said in a statement. “It has helped make our country the strong, prosperous, and great nation that it is today.”
In their complaints, attorneys general pointed to an 1898 case in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a San Francisco man, born to Chinese parents living in the United States, who was denied reentry after returning from a visit to see his parents in 1895.
In that case, the court wrote that the man, Wong Kim Ark, was a citizen under the “clear words and manifest intent” of the 14th Amendment.
The lawsuit is reminiscent of the early days of Trump’s first term in office, when Democratic attorneys general acted as the front line of the resistance against an order barring immigration and visitors from several Muslim-majority nations. This time, some Democrats hinted they had been prepared for Trump’s order, which he promised during the campaign.
“We started preparing for this scenario more than a year ago,” Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) said in a statement. Ferguson, who sued Trump’s administration repeatedly when he was Washington’s attorney general, gave up that office just last week to his successor, Attorney General Nick Brown (D), who spearheaded the suit filed in Seattle.
Brown’s office said attorneys working for Ferguson, and now Brown, had tracked Trump’s statements on the campaign trail and perused Project 2025, the policy handbook Trump allies prepared before the president won election to a second term, to anticipate potential harms ahead of the new administration.