Washington AG to sue over Trump’s birthright citizenship order

Attorney General Nick Brown signs his election certificate after being sworn in Jan. 15 at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia. (Photo by Ryan Berry/Washington State Standard)

Washington’s attorney general plans to sue the Trump administration Tuesday over the president’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. 

Attorney General Nick Brown’s lawsuit comes just 24 hours after President Donald Trump took office for a second time Monday. 

Brown, who was sworn in last week, is set to announce the litigation in an 11 a.m. news conference in Seattle.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution codified birthright citizenship in 1868.

Trump’s executive order, signed in the opening hours of his presidency, would block birthright citizenship for children born to mothers in the United States illegally and fathers who are not lawful permanent residents. It would also affect children born to mothers in the country temporarily, such as on student, work or tourist visas.

Legal experts have said Trump’s plan won’t hold up in court. In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship when it ruled a person born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a U.S. citizen. 

The 14th Amendment begins: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The executive order focuses on the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase.

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

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

In an interview last week, Brown highlighted birthright citizenship as a potential battleground with the Trump administration.

“There have been proposals to end birthright citizenship, for example, or at least attempt to, despite its real, solid constitutional Foundation,” he said.

Trump issued dozens of executive orders on his first day focused on immigration and other areas. On Monday night, Brown described these as “gravely concerning.”

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

Brown is no stranger to legal clashes with the Trump administration.

As former Gov. Jay Inslee’s legal counsel in 2017, he helped draft the administration’s opposition to the federal ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.

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