Republican attorneys general from 18 states are pushing back against lawsuits filed by Democrat AGs and legal groups nationwide challenging the Trump administration’s executive order on birthright citizenship through an amicus brief filing set to be filed Monday, Fox News Digital has learned.
“If someone comes on a tourist visa to have an anchor baby, they are not under that original meaning of the United States Constitution,” Iowa AG Brenna Bird told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday. Bird is the lead AG leading an amicus brief filing in support of the executive order on Monday.
“Oftentimes, when this has happened. It’s the taxpayers that are paying for the health care through Medicaid or through hospitals, paying for care for someone to have a child, or the state child health insurance system as well,” Bird said. “Each state has a system that helps kids without insurance, and so the taxpayers are on the hook here for all the costs.”
Bird’s amicus brief comes in response to 18 Democrat-led states who launched their own lawsuit, claiming the order is unconstitutional and “unprecedented.”
“The President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth,” the lawsuit reads.
Attorneys general from California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine and others signed on to the suit, along with the city and county of San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration the same day he signed the order “on behalf of organizations with members whose babies born on U.S. soil will be denied citizenship under the order.” The ACLU also claimed the order is unconstitutional and against congressional intent and Supreme Court precedent.
Bird’s brief – signed by Republican AGs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming – focuses on several arguments.
The first part of the 13-page brief claims that President Donald Trump’s executive order complies with the “original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The second portion claims Trump’s order “reduces harm to the states.”
The brief states that the “Plaintiffs’ erroneous Citizenship Clause interpretation will continue the powerful incentive for citizens of foreign countries to give birth on American soil, even if they must illegally enter this country to do so.”
“The lure of American citizenship motivates pregnant women to travel to America to give birth,” the brief reads. “Some women, desperate to give birth in the United States, cross the border the day they deliver their baby.”
A border hospital administrator described witnessing pregnant women arriving at the hospital in active labor, still wet and shivering from crossing the river, determined to give birth in the U.S., the brief, which will be filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, says.
Trump’s order, titled the “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” states that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States” when the individual’s parents are illegal immigrants living in the U.S. or if their presence is lawful but temporary. It was among the first orders he signed after taking office in early January.
“President Trump is restoring the meaning and value of American citizenship, and also making sure that if someone is breaking the law, they won’t be rewarded for that by getting citizenship,” Bird said. “And so it’s following the Constitution and making sure that we’re upholding our immigration laws.”
