Press Release  AG Campbell Defends Birthright Citizenship At U.S. Supreme Court

BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today co-led a coalition of 24 attorneys general and the city of San Francisco in filing an amicus brief 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 purporting 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 the Immigration and Nationality Act. AG Campbell and a coalition of 19 attorneys general and the city of San Francisco immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the Order and were successful in obtaining a nationwide preliminary injunction that blocked it from taking effect while the case proceeded.  

The Supreme Court is now considering the validity of the President’s Executive Order in the context of a challenge brought by a class of children who would lose citizenship under the Order. In today’s brief, AG Campbell and the coalition argue that the Executive Order is unlawful and would impose significant harms on states and their residents. 

“For more than a year, we’ve been fighting to protect the constitutional rights of babies born in Massachusetts and across the country from the Trump Administration’s blatantly unlawful Order that would rip away their right to citizenship,” said AG Campbell. “Courts have ruled again and again that President Trump does not have the authority to rewrite the Constitution, and I will continue to stand up for the rule of law and for American children across the country whose fundamental rights are being attacked by this Administration.” 

Birthright citizenship dates back centuries—including to pre-Civil War America. As the amicus brief explains, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld birthright citizenship, regardless of the immigration status of the baby’s parents. In addition, Congress codified birthright citizenship into law 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 babies 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 would lose their most basic rights and be forced to live under a threat of deportation. Some babies would be stateless, lacking a home country to return to. They would also lose eligibility for a wide range of federal services and programs, including their ability to obtain a Social Security number, work lawfully as they age, vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices. 

In addition to harming hundreds of thousands of residents, the coalition argues that the Order would also cause significant harm to states. Among other things, states would 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, in part, on the citizenship status of the resident being served. States would also be required—at considerable expense—to immediately begin modifying their operation and administration of benefits programs to account for this change, which would impose significant burdens on multiple agencies that operate programs for the benefit of their residents.  

Joining AG Campbell in filing this brief are the attorneys general of California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, and the city of San Francisco. 

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