Nebraska AG joins lawsuit supporting Trump's citizenship verification order

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers has joined a federal lawsuit supporting President Trump's executive order on citizenship verification in federal elections, according to a statement from the Nebraska Attorney General's Office posted April 20.

Hilgers joined 17 other states in filing a friend-of-the-court brief supporting President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. The filing comes as multiple federal judges have already ruled the order unconstitutional.

Trump signed the executive order on March 31 to strengthen election integrity by ordering citizenship verification for federal elections and directing the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to compile and transmit to each state a list of confirmed U.S. citizens who will be eligible to vote. The lists will be updated and transmitted no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled federal election and individuals and states will be allowed to access, update, or correct records.

Hilgers told the Journal Star in an email that "our immigration system is broken, in part because of the idea that the child of any person who is here illegally, under nearly any set of circumstances, receives the privilege of United States citizenship so long as they are born here." Hilgers said Nebraska stands with Iowa and other sister states in "defending the executive order, and have urged the court to adhere to the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment."

The order faces legal challenges. A longtime federal judge in Seattle called it "blatantly unconstitutional" and temporarily blocked it from going into effect in a case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon. Additionally, a federal judge in Maryland ruled that "no court in the country has ever endorsed the president's interpretation" of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

Civil rights groups oppose the filing. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska called Hilgers' support of Trump's executive order "a waste of state resources and deeply harmful," with the legal director stating "children born in this country are United States citizens."