WISCONSIN — Wisconsin joined 22 other states Tuesday in a lawsuit to block an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that would end birthright citizenship, a decades-old immigration policy that guarantees children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status. 

The lawsuit alleges that the nearly 700-word executive order issued by Trump on Monday is “unconstitutional” because it violates the 14th Amendment. That amendment, ratified in 1868, allows all children born in the U.S. to have citizenship. It reads: “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.”

Trump’s executive order seeks to stop the State Department from issuing passports to babies born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents and would also instruct the Social Security Administration to no longer recognize them as U.S. citizens. The order is supposed to take effect within the next 30 days.

“Attempting to deny citizenship to kids who were born in the United States of America is as egregious and wrong-headed as it is unconstitutional,” said Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers in a press release on Tuesday. “We must defend Americans’ constitutional rights, including the rights of kids who are born on U.S. soil, and that is exactly what we are doing today.”

The 18 states behind the lawsuit all have Democratic attorneys general. In addition to Wisconsin, they include Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, New Mexico and Vermont. It also includes the District of Columbia, and the city of San Francisco.

“The Constitution, federal law, and Supreme Court precedent all make clear that the children who would be impacted by this executive order are United States citizens,” said Attorney General Kaul. “This attempt to deny them citizenship in blatant violation of the Constitution should be rejected.”

The ACLU partnered with ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Asian Law Caucus, State Democracy Defenders Fund and Legal Defense Fund to file the lawsuit on behalf of various groups whose members’ babies would be denied citizenship under the new executive order.

“Denying citizenship to U.S.-born children is not only unconstitutional — it’s also a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement about the lawsuit his group filed in partnership with other immigrants rights groups Monday night.

Officials said the executive order will also result in states losing federal funding for programs like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and foster care and adoption assistance programs.

The suit alleges the Trump administration is flouting the Constitution’s dictates, congressional intent and longstanding Supreme Court precedent.

About 4.4 million children born in the U.S. and under the age of 18 were living with an undocumented immigrant parent in 2022, the Pew Research Center found; 1.4 million adults have undocumented parents.

Immigration and border issues were a major focus of the Trump presidential campaign. On Monday, hours after he was sworn in as president, Trump began to make good on his promises, signing executive orders declaring a national emergency at the southern border, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy that requires asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico until their claims are processed, and ending a program that allows immigrants who entered the country illegally to remain in the country while their asylum cases are processed.

He also signed orders to renew construction of the southern border wall, suspend refugee resettlement and deploy the U.S. military to the border.

Read the full lawsuit below: