AG Brown co-leads amicus brief defending birthright citizenship at U.S. Supreme Court

Attorney General Nick Brown is co-leading a multistate amicus brief filed today defending birthright citizenship at the U.S. Supreme Court, standing up to President Trump’s illegal effort to rewrite the Constitution and overturn federal law.

On his first day in office in 2025, President Trump issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship for countless children born in the United States to immigrant parents, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Section 1401 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Groups of states immediately filed two lawsuits challenging the order, one in the Western District of Washington and one in the District of Massachusetts. Both suits were successful, repeatedly obtaining nationwide preliminary injunctions that blocked this executive order from ever taking effect.

The Supreme Court is now considering the validity of this order in the context of a challenge brought by a class of children who would lose citizenship under the order in the case Barbara v. Trump. Amici – including 24 Attorneys General – submit today’s brief to explain why this executive order violates the Citizenship Clause, binding Supreme Court precedent, and the INA, and how the order would impose significant harms on states and their residents.

“On the day he took the oath of office to protect the Constitution, President Trump immediately undermined it with this blatantly illegal executive order,” Brown said. “No single person can redefine American citizenship, not even the President.”

Birthright citizenship dates back centuries – including to pre-Civil War America. Although the Supreme Court’s notorious decision in Dred Scott denied birthright citizenship to the descendants of slaves, the post-Civil War United States adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to protect citizenship for children born in the country. As the amicus brief explains, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld birthright citizenship, regardless of the immigration status of the individual’s parents. In addition, Congress further codified birthright citizenship twice, first in 1940 and then again in 1952.

If allowed to stand, this executive order – for the first time since the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 – would mean thousands of children born each year who otherwise would have been citizens will no longer enjoy the privileges and benefits of citizenship. 

The children stripped of their citizenship will lose their most basic rights and be forced to live under the threat of deportation. Some babies will be stateless, lacking a home country to return to. They will lose eligibility for a wide range of federal services and programs. They will lose their ability to obtain a Social Security number and, as they age, to work lawfully. And they will lose their right to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices. Despite the Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship, thousands of children will – for the first time – lose their ability to fully and fairly be a part of American society as a citizen with all its benefits and privileges.

In addition to harming hundreds of thousands of residents, the states’ filing explains that the order significantly harms the states as well. Among other things, states will lose federal funding to programs they administer, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and foster care and adoption assistance programs, which all turn at least in part on the citizenship status of the resident being served. States will also be required – at considerable expense – to immediately begin modifying their operation and administration of benefits programs to account for this change, which will impose significant burdens on multiple agencies that operate programs for the benefit of the states’ residents. 

Even more alarming, although the order President Trump signed indicates it would only apply to babies born after a certain date, there is no reason to believe the Trump administration will stop there if a court sides with its theories. The citizenship of countless Americans could be called into question, including those accorded birthright citizenship decades ago.

The coalition joining today’s filing includes New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin, as well as San Francisco.

A copy of the amicus brief is available here.

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