Twenty-two States Sue to Stop Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order

Attorneys general from 22 states sued President Trump in two federal district courts on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Eighteen states and two cities, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., challenged the order in Federal District Court in Massachusetts, arguing that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment is “automatic” and that neither the president nor Congress has the constitutional authority to revise it. Four other states filed a second lawsuit in the Western District of Washington.

Mr. Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship was “extraordinary and extreme,” said New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, who led one of the legal efforts along with the attorneys general from California and Massachusetts.

“Presidents are powerful,” he said, “but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with a stroke of the pen.”

Nick Brown, the attorney general in Washington, said Mr. Trump’s order would deny citizenship to 150,000 newborn children each year.

“It would render them undocumented at birth. It could even render them citizens to no country at all,” said Mr. Brown, whose state was joined by Oregon, Arizona and Illinois.