AG Steve Marshall Joins Coalition Behind Trump Birthright Citizenship

(UNITED STATES) Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has joined a 24-state coalition backing President Donald Trump’s order to curb birthright citizenship, filing a Supreme Court brief on October 27, 2025 that urges the justices to uphold the policy. The filing supports the federal government’s bid for high court review in the consolidated cases Trump v. Washington and Trump v. Barbara, setting up a major constitutional fight over who qualifies for U.S. citizenship at birth and how far an executive order can go in defining it.

Marshall framed the dispute as a return to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and a pushback against what the states call unintended consequences of modern migration.

“The Constitution is not a loophole for illegal immigration. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment did not mean for citizenship to be granted by mere accident of birth. Citizenship belongs to those who share allegiance to our nation, reserved for the children of American citizens and lawful permanent residents, not those present unlawfully or temporarily. President Trump’s order rightly restores the true intent of the Citizenship Clause, and we urge the Supreme Court to affirm that principle,” he said.

The comments anchor a Supreme Court brief that leans heavily on text, history, and the states’ claimed fiscal and public safety burdens.

The coalition’s Supreme Court brief was co-led by Tennessee and Iowa and 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. The states argue that the Citizenship Clause—“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”—was written to secure citizenship for formerly enslaved people and their children, not to automatically confer citizenship on children of undocumented immigrants or short-term visitors. That position faces long-standing readings of the amendment that have anchored birthright citizenship for more than a century and will put the Supreme Court at the center of a defining immigration question.

At stake is Trump’s executive order signed on January 20, 2025, his first day back in office. The order directs federal agencies to stop recognizing U.S. citizenship at birth for children born on U.S. soil when neither parent is a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident, and to recognize citizenship at birth only if at least one parent has one of those statuses. It was slated to apply prospectively for children born on or after February 19, 2025. The administration has said the order aims to standardize a rule it argues is consistent with allegiance and jurisdiction as understood in the late 1860s, while opponents say it defies the Constitution’s plain text and modern precedent.

The order has been tied up in court for most of the year. Multiple lawsuits were filed across the country soon after the policy was announced, and the measure is currently blocked by preliminary injunctions from federal courts, meaning it is not being applied while those cases move forward. As of November 2, 2025, birthright citizenship remains in effect for all children born in the United States regardless of their parents’ immigration status. That status quo persists even after the Supreme Court’s June 27, 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, which limited the scope of nationwide injunctions but did not address the constitutionality of the birthright policy itself. The narrower injunctions ruling reshaped how lower courts can block federal policies but left the core legal question for another day.

States backing the order say they are already bearing measurable costs tied to unauthorized immigration and that the current system creates incentives for misuse. Their Supreme Court brief cites research estimating that up to 250,000 U.S. births each year—about 7% of all births—are to parents who are in the country unlawfully, and it argues those numbers translate into higher expenses for health care, public benefits, and state services. The states also point to public safety challenges, saying they must devote additional law enforcement resources connected to a larger noncitizen population without legal status. They argue the executive order, if allowed to take effect, would over time reduce the number of automatic citizenship grants that flow from temporary presence or unlawful status, easing what they describe as a long-running strain on state budgets and programs.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, whose state joined the Supreme Court brief, cast the case as a test of constitutional fidelity.

“I’m proud to support President Trump’s legal efforts to defend the Constitution and enforce our laws. This is an important case for our nation’s future and sovereignty. President Trump, my colleagues and I are on the right side of the law here, and we are confident a majority of Supreme Court justices will agree with our position and issue a favorable opinion.”

The statement underscores the coalition’s confidence that the high court will read the Citizenship Clause more narrowly than current practice and will validate a presidential directive that redefines the rule for births on U.S. soil.

The Supreme Court brief leans heavily on historical interpretation, asserting that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” excluded people who owed allegiance to a foreign power and were present only temporarily or unlawfully. The states place the amendment’s framing against the backdrop of Reconstruction, arguing that its drafters sought to resolve the status of formerly enslaved people and did not intend to extend citizenship by birth to every child born on U.S. soil absent a deeper legal tie to the nation. They say the order aligns with that reading by tying birthright to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident—standards the states say reflect allegiance and full jurisdiction.

The policy clash has rippled quickly beyond the courts. Hospitals, state health departments, and local registrars have continued to issue birth certificates as usual under the existing framework because the order is enjoined, but they also face uncertainty about how to implement new documentation checks if the injunctions are lifted. Advocacy groups and immigration attorneys have told families that the current practice remains unchanged while appeals proceed, but have warned that any final Supreme Court ruling could reshape the meaning of citizenship at birth with immediate effects on children born after the order’s delayed effective date. That divide—enjoined rules on paper, daily life unchanged for now—has created a narrow window where courts are the main arbiters and families, state agencies, and federal officers are waiting for a definitive answer.

The litigation posture reflects that reality. The federal government has asked the Supreme Court to take up the consolidated cases Trump v. Washington and Trump v. Barbara to resolve conflicting lower court rulings and to decide whether the president may direct agencies to apply the Fourteenth Amendment as the order describes. A ruling to grant or deny review would set the timetable for when the justices might hear argument, and whether the justices will measure the order against constitutional text and history, administrative law principles, or both. The justices’ approach will determine whether they decide the issue this term or leave it to continue percolating in the lower courts. For a case this central to the meaning of citizenship, the court’s docket choices are themselves consequential.

For states in the coalition, the filing also serves a political and practical function: clarifying where they stand and what they want the court to do. Alabama’s Marshall has made that case plainly in public and in the filing, telling the court that the Citizenship Clause should not be read to extend to children of parents “present unlawfully or temporarily.” The brief’s emphasis on burdens—economic, administrative, and public safety—seeks to strengthen the case that states have a direct stake in how the federal government interprets citizenship rules, and that their interests are more than abstract policy preferences. By pointing to an estimated 250,000 births a year to parents without legal status, the states anchor their argument in a specific metric they say matters for budgets and planning.

Opponents of the policy, who have prevailed in securing preliminary injunctions so far, argue in their filings that the Fourteenth Amendment’s plain text covers anyone born on U.S. soil, with narrow exceptions that do not include the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors. They say the executive branch cannot, through an order, redefine a constitutional guarantee. Those arguments, while not detailed in the coalition’s filing, frame the legal tug-of-war that the Supreme Court has been asked to resolve and explain why injunctions remain in place even after the CASA decision limited their reach. For now, those court orders keep hospital procedures, Social Security number issuance, and passport eligibility rules unchanged for newborns.

Beyond the courtrooms, the policy’s delayed effective date adds another layer. By targeting births on or after February 19, 2025, the order attempts to avoid retroactive disruption to existing citizenship status while still changing how future cases are handled. The administration’s choice of a 30-day gap from the signature date on January 20, 2025 gave agencies time to draft guidance and plan system changes, but the injunctions halted that process midstream. If the Supreme Court eventually upholds the order, agencies would have to reactivate their implementation plans, including verifying parental status and training frontline staff in hospitals and vital records offices.

While the Supreme Court weighs whether to hear the case, families, state agencies, and immigration lawyers remain in a holding pattern. The coalition’s filing highlights the breadth of red-state support—stretching from the Southeast across the Plains to the Mountain West—as a signal that the states are unified in seeking a narrower interpretation of birthright citizenship. The participating attorneys general have also placed political capital behind the effort, making their arguments publicly through statements like Marshall’s and Drummond’s and privately through legal briefs designed for an audience of nine justices.

The administrative posture also underscores a broader institutional question the justices may consider: how much room the executive branch has to interpret constitutional text when it directs agencies to act. The court’s June 27, 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA trimmed the availability of nationwide injunctions, but it left untouched the deeper issue of whether a president can reinterpret a clause like the Citizenship Clause through executive action rather than legislation or constitutional amendment. The states’ Supreme Court brief presents that executive interpretation as corrective rather than novel. Opponents call it unconstitutional overreach. The court’s willingness to grant review will signal how ready it is to enter that debate this term.

For those looking for official case updates, the Supreme Court of the United States posts orders and docket entries that will show if and when the justices agree to hear the consolidated cases and on what schedule. Until then, the injunctions keep existing rules in place. Attorneys general in the coalition are telling constituents that nothing changes immediately and that the argument is about future births falling under the order’s prospective date, not retroactive revocations of citizenship.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office has provided points of contact for questions about the filing: Amanda Priest at (334) 322-5694 and William Califf at (334) 604-3230. Those lines reflect the level of interest the case has generated across the South and beyond, as families expecting children this year ask whether a child’s citizenship depends on the parents’ status on the day of birth and as hospitals prepare for any future administrative shifts that might follow a high court ruling.

The coming months will determine whether the Supreme Court takes up the case and, if it does, how quickly it will move to argument and a decision. For now, the law stands where it was at the start of the year: as of November 2, 2025, birthright citizenship remains the rule in every state, and every child born on U.S. soil continues to receive citizenship at birth regardless of parental status. By marshaling a broad coalition and filing a Supreme Court brief that stakes out an aggressive reading of the Citizenship Clause, Steve Marshall and his counterparts have ensured that the next chapter in the century-long debate over birthright citizenship will be written at the nation’s highest court.