MINNEAPOLIS, MN.-
A coalition of prosecutors from 23 states, the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco (California) presented this Thursday to the United States Supreme Court a brief against an order by President Donald Trump to limit birthright citizenship, arguing that it is illegal.
The group of Democratic governments presented an “amicus brief” (motion presented by a party outside the litigation) in a case that reviews the right enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which since the 19th century has guaranteed US citizenship to people born in the territory, a right that Trump wants to deny to children of undocumented parents or those with temporary visas.
“The Fourteenth Amendment is very clear: if you are born in the United States, you are an American citizen. President Trump does not have the power to change that with the stroke of a pen, whatever he thinks,” Arizona prosecutor Kris Mayes, who spearheaded the brief, stated in a statement.
On his first day in office in 2025, the Republican issued an executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented parents.
The order faced at least two lawsuits that were successful, obtaining repeated precautionary measures at the national level that prevented its entry into force.
Trump went to the Supreme Court, which last year decided to hear the arguments in the case. In the document filed today, prosecutors warned that Trump’s executive order would impose significant harm on states and their residents.
“Children stripped of their citizenship lose their most basic rights and will be forced to live under the threat of deportation. Some babies will be stateless, without a country of origin to return to,” prosecutors warn in a statement.
Some 255,000 babies a year could be affected by these limitations on birthright citizenship, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute.
Trump has defended his position by saying that the 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to protect the “children of slaves” and not “those who take vacations to obtain citizenship” in the United States.
The attorneys general of New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as the city of San Francisco, supported Mayes in the defense brief.
