Attorneys general from 22 blue states along with Washington DC and San Francisco signed a secret agreement just 3 days after President Trump won the 2024 election for a coordinated response to resist Trump's anticipated actions to end birthright citizenship.
According to an investigation by the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project, the 22 AGs agreed to legal collaboration and communication to defy Trump's immigration enforcement initiatives, including any deemed confidential or privileged.
All shared information would be used to coordinate various legal schemes, as well as pre-lawsuit investigations, litigation strategies, complaints, dispositive motions, merits briefs, and amicus briefs. The agreement also bars third parties from accessing any of this shared information, which is defined as all documents, materials, information, and communications exchanged between the attorneys generals’ offices prior to the agreement.
The agreement does allow for public records requests, but requires any AG to give five days' notice to the other AGs about the request before it was due.
"The Parties have agreed that they have a common interest in developing potential litigation to challenge executive action related to ending or curtailing birthright citizenship," according to the agreement.
As AZ Free News notes further, the other attorneys general to enter the secretive agreement oversaw California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, as well as Washington, D.C.
The city and county of San Francisco, California also joined the agreement last month.
Trump issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship during his first day in office. The order extends to children born of illegal immigrant parents in the U.S. It prohibits the federal government from issuing or accepting citizenship documents from persons born under those circumstances after its effective date, which is scheduled to take place later this month.
“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” read the order.
The order flies in the face of longstanding court precedent on the matter.
That precedent led three federal judges in separate cases to block Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The first two occurred in Washington and Maryland, with the third occurring on Monday in New Hampshire.
Mayes joined Arizona to the case blocked in the Washington district court earlier this month. Based on the timeline of the secretive agreement and the filing of their lawsuit, it appears the case emerged directly from that agreement.
“The court’s decision to block this illegal executive order nationwide protects the basic right to birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” said Mayes. “I will keep fighting to protect the Constitutional rights of all Arizonans from the Trump administration’s illegal actions.”
Several of those states signed onto the secretive agreement — Washington, Oregon, and Illinois — were partnered on the lawsuit with Mayes.