North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, over Trump's executive order that attempts to end birthright citizenship.
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution has been interpreted in court for more than a century to say that everyone born in the U.S. automatically becomes a U.S. citizen. Trump, however, wants to change that.
Other WRAL Top Stories
A Republican who won election in 2024 in large part due to his anti-immigration stances, Trump is hoping to convince courts to change that interpretation and rule that people who are born in the U.S. can't become citizens if their parents are either undocumented immigrants or are here legally but on a temporary basis, such as a work visa or a student visa.
About half a million immigrants call North Carolina home, of whom an estimated 325,000 are undocumented, according to state and federal data.
Trump's executive order is set to go into effect in late February. It wouldn't retroactively take away citizenship from anyone. But the proposed new rules would apply to any babies born after Feb. 19.
However, it's possible a court could issue an order blocking it before then.
That's exactly what Jackson and the others suing Trump hope to accomplish. "Over a century of precedent says that his interpretation is plainly wrong," Jackson told WRAL in an interview Tuesday.
Jackson said other lawsuits are likely to come against more of the executive orders Trump signed shortly after being sworn into office Monday. This one was the first, he said, in part because it appears to be so blatantly unconstitutional.
"When we read it last night, it was just a straightforward violation of the 14th Amendment," Jackson said in an interview. "It was not a hard call from a legal standpoint as to whether or not this violates the Constitution. It plainly does."
Trump has defended the changes targeting birthright citizenship as being part of his "Make America Great Again" agenda.
"With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense," Trump said in his inaugural speech Monday.
In the Triangle region alone, tens of thousands of Asian immigrants live and work in North Carolina on the basis of temporary authorizations such as student visas or H-1B visas. Some have been waiting years for citizenship or a green card, but the system faces major backlogs — backlogs that now potentially threaten their dreams of a future in America, with American children. Jimmy Patel-Nguyen, a spokesman for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, said the group supports the fight against Trump's order.
"If this does go through — and we're hoping that it doesn't — it would strip citizenship from U.S.-born children," he said. "It would deny them fundamental rights like voting and education and health care."
Chris Barnes, a Chapel Hill immigration attorney, said in an interview that if Trump's order does survive legal challenges it could lead to confusing situations for local families in the future. For instance, he said, it's not immediately clear what might happen in the case of someone who has a baby while one or both of the parents' applications for a green card is in the process of being approved, but before it becomes final.
"Does that child claim citizenship?" he said. "Or is that child undocumented?"
Barnes added that while there could be confusion going forward if the order stands, people who already have U.S. citzenship aren't at risk of having that revoked, at least by this executive order.
"It would not retroactively take away citizenship for anyone born before February the 20th," he said.
Legal arguments
Birthright citizenship isn't a universal concept. Nearly every country in the western hemisphere has birthright citizenship rules similar to those in the U.S. that Trump is now challenging. But most Asian, African and Eastern European countries don't. In Western Europe, citizenship rules differ by country.
American birthright citizen is based on the 14th Amendment, which became law more than 150 years ago. The 14th Amendment 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 amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868 as part of post-Civil War amendments. It was primarily aimed at making sure formely enslaved people would be considered U.S. citizens.
In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment applied everyone born in the U.S., including immigrants. That precedent has remained in place ever since. Trump wrote in his executive order he thinks the 14th Amendment has been interpreted incorrectly.
If Trump's order survives this or other legal challenges, then American-born babies would only be granted citizenship if at least one of their parents is a citzen or a permanent resident.
Trump won the presidency in 2024 — including winning North Carolina with a larger percentage of the vote than in either 2016 or 2020 — in a campaign that made immigration crackdowns a top priority. Throughout the 2024 elections, WRAL News polled voters on their top issues and found immigration concerns were prevalent among Trump supporters as well as many Trump opponents, too.
Jackson, a Democrat, also won election in 2024. The lawsuit he had North Carolina join on Tuesday was brought by 18 states, all of them also led by Democrats. Four other states, also all led by Democrats, later filed a separate lawsuit challenging Trump's order.
Jackson, however, said the legal fight isn't about politics.
"My job is to defend the Constitution, and that's what I'm going to do," he said.