From Fox News: Nearly all Republican attorneys general asked the Supreme Court on Friday to side with President Donald Trump in his fight to curtail birthright citizenship, offering a wide show of support for one of the president’s most controversial agenda items.
The 24 states, led by Iowa’s Brenna Bird and Tennessee’s Jonathan Skrmetti, argued in an amicus brief that the 14th Amendment, which addresses birthright citizenship, was not designed to give automatic citizenship to babies born to mothers living in the country illegally or temporarily visiting.
The state attorneys wrote that they have a unique interest in seeing birthright citizenship limited because it incentivizes illegal immigration, which they said has negatively affected their states.
“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.”
Tennessee and Iowa are joined by 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 in the effort.
CLICK HERE to read the full document the 24 attorneys general submitted to the Supreme Court.
In a press release, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said he was urging the Court to clarify that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause does not provide automatic citizenship to everyone born in the United States. The press release states:
The States argue 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.
“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,” said Attorney General Skrmetti. “If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. 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.”
The States’ brief lays out historical evidence from the 1860s through the early 1900s that supports this interpretation. Congressional debates, executive branch practice, and legal commentary from the Reconstruction Era consistently emphasized that citizenship required parental domicile and allegiance to the United States, not temporary or unlawful presence. The brief recognizes that many people now cite the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark for the proposition that the Citizenship Clause guarantees birthright citizenship even to children born here 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.
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
“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,” Iowa AG Brenna Bird declared.
— Iowa AG Brenna Bird (@AGIowa) October 24, 2025
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