The resistance movement remains strong among Democratic state attorneys general, many of whom have recently formed an informal “pact” to challenge or delay every aspect of President Donald Trump’s agenda. A strategy to counter the Trump administration’s sweeping reforms on illegal immigration, particularly the proposed elimination of birthright citizenship as a constitutional guarantee, has been detailed in a document obtained by the Heritage Foundation.
The conservative think tank revealed that 23 attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia have formed a “secret pact” to aggressively block the end of birthright citizenship following President Trump’s signing of a related executive order. The foundation’s Oversight project wrote on X that the plan has been in place and was “signed beginning on November 8, 2024.”
“This agreement, just 3 days after President Trump’s landslide election win, shows that these resistance actors began, as a matter of absolute urgent top priority, plotting their resistance to President Trump’s anticipated actions to end birthright citizenship,” the post read. “Their top priority was not gas, groceries, public safety, or any other matter of concerns of their citizen constituents, but instead a raw political calculus to ensure that the future children of the illegal aliens that entered during the Biden Border Crisis could turn into voters.”
Written as a legal “common interest agreement,” all parties agree to help propagate “potential litigation to challenge executive action related to ending or curtailing birthright citizenship,” according to the Western Journal. The agreement “sets forth the agreement under which each Party and their respective staff, management, consultants, experts, counsel, and agents will manage and protect confidential and/or privileged information shared and exchanged regarding” a challenge to the removal of birthright citizenship.
Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have criticized the influence of district courts in hindering their efforts on birthright citizenship. On Tuesday, a New Hampshire judge became the third to block the enforcement of the president’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants or those residing lawfully but temporarily in the U.S.
A day before the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed “activist judges” for obstructing executive powers, arguing that their decisions represented the true “constitutional crisis,” rather than Trump’s executive orders. “We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law,” Leavitt told reporters, according to the AP. She insisted that “the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch.”
Trump slapped down liberal media and Democrats all claiming that his complaints about federal court rulings against his executive orders amounted to attempts to flout their decisions. “I follow the courts. I have to follow the law. All it means is that we appeal,” he said.