Washington state AG sues Trump administration over order to end birthright citizenship
Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown has sued President Donald Trump and his administration over an executive order to end birthright citizenship, calling the action "unconstitutional, un-American, and cruel."
The lawsuit, which has been joined by Oregon, Arizona, and Illinois, was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. It's part of a growing series of legal challenges brought against the Trump administration by Democratic state leaders in the past 24 hours.
On Monday, just hours after being sworn into office, Trump issued an order called the "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," which would do away with automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status — a right currently protected by the 14th Amendment.
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"We all recognize that the president began his political career in large part by inciting fear and hatred against immigrant communities. Now he wants to redefine American citizenship altogether, but one man cannot simply erase what the meaning of the Constitution is, not even the president," Brown said at a press conference Tuesday morning. "Birthright citizenship has been the law in this country for over 150 years."
According to the lawsuit, in 2022, approximately 7,000 children with U.S. citizenship were born in Washington state to at least one parent without legal status.
Brown said that if Trump's order holds, "thousands of people born here in Washington...would be denied the key to full participation and opportunity in American society. It would render them undocumented at birth. It could even render them the citizens of no country at all."
Some have accused Brown of seizing on a hot-button issue to make headlines. Washington state GOP chair Jim Walsh called the lawsuit a “craven political move,” in a text to KUOW.
For his part, Brown said his office will also file an emergency motion in the coming 24 hours that "seeks to block any federal agency from relying on the order to deny citizenship to babies born in [Washington] state."
California and 17 other states have also filed a federal lawsuit challenging Trump's executive order as of Tuesday morning, and the ACLU and immigration advocacy groups filed one Monday night.
Update notice, Thursday, 1/23/25 at 1 p.m.: This story has been updated to clarify that 7,000 Washingtonians were born to at least one parent without legal status in 2022, according to the state Attorney General's Office.
