Nessel joins Dem AGs in challenging Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship

Updated, 8:48 a.m., 1//22/25

After speaking out against the flurry of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, Michigan Attorney Dana Nessel is joining with the attorneys general of 21 other states in challenging an order aimed to halt birthright citizenship. 

“Birthright citizenship is a basic right granted to all Americans born on United States soil with historic roots and long-lasting implications for the states and their residents,” Nessel said in a statement. “The Citizenship Clause has stood as constitutional law in this nation for more than 150 years and has twice been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is disappointing that in the first hours of this incoming administration, the first perceived enemy President Trump has struck against is the U.S. Constitution.”

The attorneys general for New Jersey; Massachusetts; California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Hawaii; Maine; Maryland; Minnesota; Nevada; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; Rhode Island; Vermont; and Wisconsin, alongside Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, filed their complaint Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a bid to invalidate the order and block any efforts taken to enforce it.

“The states request immediate relief to prevent the President’s Order from taking effect through both a Temporary Restraining Order and a Preliminary Injunction,” the Michigan Department of Attorney General wrote in a statement. 

The order will take effect in 30 days and does not rescind citizenship from individuals who were already born in the U.S. It instead aims to block individuals born to mothers who are not legal residents and whose fathers are not citizens or legal permanent residents. It would also impact children whose mothers are in the U.S. with temporary legal status, including student or work visas. 

In their complaint, the attorneys general note that birthright citizenship has been enshrined in the Constitution for more than 150 years, pointing to the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. 

“The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment unambiguously and expressly confers citizenship on ‘[a]ll persons born’ in and ‘subject to the jurisdiction’” of the United States,” the attorneys general wrote in their complaint. 

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, determining that an individual born to Chinese parents in the United States was a U.S. citizen. 

Trump’s order hinges on the clause’s inclusion of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” arguing “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown is also suing the Trump administration over the executive order, describing Trump’s executive orders as “gravely concerning.”

“We will carefully analyze the orders and determine what legal action is appropriate,” Brown said in a statement Monday. “Some examples, such as the president’s attack on birthright citizenship, are not only unconstitutional on their face, but simply un-American.”

A group of advocacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union,  has also filed a legal challenge on the birthright citizenship order.

This brief features reporting from Washington State Standard Reporter Jake Goldstein-Street.