By Jake Goldstein-Street
Washington State Standard
Washington’s attorney general, along with three other states, sued the Trump administration Tuesday, Jan. 21 over the president’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
Attorney General Nick Brown’s lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle comes just 24 hours after President Donald Trump took office for a second time Monday.
The Democratic attorney general, who took office last week, announced the litigation Tuesday in a press conference in Seattle. Oregon, Arizona and Illinois joined the lawsuit.
Brown said he would be filing an emergency motion to block federal agencies “relying on the order to deny citizenship to babies born in our state.” An attorney general’s office spokesperson added the order will seek to stop enforcement of the order “in its entirety.”
“On Monday, one man, the president, said that the citizenship of millions of Americans born to immigrants in this country means less,” Brown said, “that the children of immigrants born into citizenship don’t have as much value in this country as others. He is wrong.”
Attorneys general from 18 other states also sued over the order in federal court in Massachusetts.
Brown noted his lawsuit is similar, but said he felt Washington should lead a separate case because of “specific and unique harms that are brought here.” He also said “we have a very good set of judges in our bench here in Washington, so I feel like this is the right place.”
A group of advocacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, has filed a legal challenge on the birthright citizenship order, as well.
Trump’s executive order, signed in the opening hours of his presidency, would block citizenship for children born to mothers who are in the United States illegally and whose fathers 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.
State House Republican Leader Drew Stokesbary, of Auburn, told reporters Tuesday morning he hadn’t seen the executive order or lawsuit.
“We got elected to solve state issues, not federal issues,” Stokesbary said. “I really like Nick Brown, but I would caution him the same way. He was elected to represent Washington and protect Washington state interests.”
Brown responded by saying he took an oath last week to defend the state and U.S. constitutions.
“I would think that everyone in the Legislature, regardless of party, would want me to uphold my obligation, and it is in my judgment and the judgment of this team that the president’s order violates the law,” he responded. “So I do not think that my friends in the Legislature of any party would want me to simply ignore that.”
Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said in a statement the attorney general’s office will “have the full support of my administration.”
Precedent
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution codified birthright citizenship in 1868. It 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, set to go into effect in 30 days, focuses on the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase.
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” Trump’s order reads. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’”
The lawsuit states, in 2022, about 255,000 children were born to undocumented mothers, including 7,000 in Washington state. About 4,000 were born to two parents without legal status.
The lawsuit, which calls Trump’s order the “Citizenship Stripping Order,” argues those affected would lose access to numerous federal benefits. And states where they reside would lose federal funding because they’re no longer citizens.
Mónica Mendoza-Cawthon, a Kent resident from the immigrant rights organization OneAmerica, was born a U.S. citizen in King County after her parents, who were undocumented farmworkers, immigrated from Mexico. She went on to graduate from college and law school.
“Unfortunately, we are in a dark time in our national government, where the dreams of my parents are threatened to be taken away for so many people in the future,” she said in Tuesday’s press conference.
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. Brown called that ruling “plain on its face.”
“My hope is that every level of court, the district court, the court of appeals, and if we go to the Supreme Court, would rule unanimously because of the well-established precedent,” the attorney general said Tuesday.
Trump has eyed ending birthright citizenship since his first term.
After signing the order Monday, he acknowledged to reporters the policy could face legal hurdles.
“I think we have good grounds, but you could be right,” Trump said. “We’ll find out.”
Laying the groundwork
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 said he will “continue to evaluate” the president’s other executive orders for potential legal challenges.
Washington’s House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, of Tacoma, said Tuesday that Brown called her about the lawsuit Monday night and that she supports it.
“We want to be as proactive as we can be and not be reactive,” Jinkins told reporters.
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.
In the days after the November election, Ferguson said his team had been preparing for a year for a second Trump presidency. This included reading all of Project 2025, the 1,000-page playbook for conservative policy. As attorney general, Ferguson sued the federal government dozens of times in Trump’s first term.
On Tuesday, Brown thanked his predecessor for the preparation.
Jake Goldstein-Street is a reporter for Washington State Standard, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and Twitter.
