Republican Attorney Generals from two dozen states have expressed support for President Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to side with Trump on the issue.
The attorneys general filed an amicus brief on Friday with the high court, challenging birthright citizenship on behalf of the 24 states. They agree that the U.S. Constitution does not give automatic citizenship to babies of illegal immigrants.
They urged SCOTUS to clarify that the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship to everyone born in the United States.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order amending the requirements for birthright citizenship. The order reversed automatic birthright citizenship on the grounds that the 14th Amendment was never meant to universally extend citizenship to everyone born within the United States.
However, the order was quickly blocked by a lawsuit filed on the same day — one of many immigration-related court cases designed to thwart the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and deportation agenda.
Led by Iowa’s Attorney General Brenna Bird and Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, AGs in two dozen states file the SCOTUS brief in support of Trump’s position, Fox News Digital reported.
The Republican AGs also maintain the 14th Amendment was not designed to give automatic citizenship to babies born to mothers living in the country illegally or temporarily visiting.
“The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to reward people for breaking the law. That’s why I co-led a brief in support of President Trump’s executive order,” Bird shared on social media Friday.
The states AGs argued that lower courts have misinterpreted the Citizenship Clause to require automatic citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ residency and immigration status, Skrmetti’s office said a news release.
“The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn’t square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War,” Attorney General Skrmetti said in a statement.
The AGs cite historical evidence from the 1860s through the early 1900s that supports this interpretation, including Congressional debates, executive branch practice and legal commentary.
Many people cite the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark as the basis for legal precedent for the Citizenship Clause, guaranteeing birthright citizenship even to children born in the United States to transient or illegally present parents.
But as the brief notes, the parents in that case were lawfully present and permanently domiciled in the United States, according to Skrmetti’s office.
Legal debate and interpretations “consistently emphasized that citizenship required parental domicile and allegiance to the United States, not temporary or unlawful presence,” the release states.
“If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country,” Skrmetti said, also announcing the SCOTUS brief on social media. “Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents’ immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation.”
Today Tennessee and @agiowa filed a SCOTUS brief challenging birthright citizenship on behalf of 24 states.
"Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents' immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship." – Attorney General… pic.twitter.com/q8iqPgQWND
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) October 24, 2025
During Biden’s open-border policies, many pregnant women crossed the border illegally or had children after the arrived, while others travel to the United States to give birth to an “anchor” baby.
Trump’s order declares that newborns of certain noncitizen mothers do not get automatic citizenship, unless their father is a citizen, Fox News Digital reported.
In the 37-page brief, the AGs wrote they support limits on birthright citizenship because it incentivizes illegal immigration, which they said has negatively affected their states by taxing social services, schools and hospital resources.
“Recent years have seen an influx of illegal aliens — over 9 million — overwhelming our nation’s infrastructure and its capacity to assimilate,” they wrote, adding that their states therefore face “significant economic, health, and public-safety issues from policies holding out a ‘powerful incentive for illegal migration,’ … beyond what the Citizenship Clause requires.”
The AGs support could lend more credibility to Trump’s ongoing legal battle — and one of his most controversial executive orders. The Supreme Court is expected to decide soon whether it will weigh in on the president’s petition, asking the high court to reinterpret the 150-year-old amendment to do away with automatic citizenship, Fox News Digital reported.
The states joining Tennessee and Iowa in support of Trump’s petition include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire did not join Friday’s amicus brief.
In response to judges uniformly blocking his order, the Supreme Court ruled that nationwide injunctions like the ones in the birthright citizenship cases were unconstitutional. But the high court left alternatives, and the lawsuits and appeals continue.
In early October, a federal appeals court in Massachusetts upheld a block on President Trump’s executive order pertaining to birthright citizenship.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals decision stems from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the ACLU in several states and other plaintiffs. In February, the federal judge presiding over the case temporarily blocked it from taking effect, and that prompted an appeal by the Trump administration, which was heard Aug. 1.
The government has sought Supreme Court review related to several cases challenging his executive order and the use of nationwide injunctions to block it, including Barbara v. Donald J. Trump and a case brought by Washington and other states, according to the ACLU.
“This ruling is the latest rebuke of President Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional efforts to end birthright citizenship,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case in Massachusetts. “In fact, not one judge has bought the administration’s flawed arguments. The government is now petitioning the Supreme Court in hopes of getting a different answer. But the Constitution is clear, and we will keep fighting this lawless order until it is struck down once and for all.”
