The suit, brought by an unnamed woman whose baby is due in March along with La Colaborativa and the Brazilian Worker Center, argued that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is clear that all people born in the country are citizens. The complaint said the president does not have the power to end the 157-year-old legal protection.
"This unprecedented attempt to strip citizenship from millions of Americans with the stroke of a pen is flagrantly illegal," the complaint states. "It is settled beyond all doubt that the president simply does not have the power to unilaterally revoke a person's birthright citizenship."
The suit followed similar litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which also challenged the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship executive order in New Hampshire federal court.
The Massachusetts complaint blasted the day-one executive order as "an unconstitutional abuse of power" that seeks to punish a group of people based on the immigration status of their parents. While the plaintiff mother has temporary protected status, according to the suit, the baby's father is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident.
The complaint also argues that the executive order fails under the Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process.
"The EO treats the targeted citizens as a subordinate caste of native-born Americans, entitled to fewer rights, benefits, and entitlements than other Americans due to their parents' alienage," the suit states.
Signed shortly after Trump took office Monday, Trump's order is called "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship" and states that the administration will not recognize automatic citizenship for any children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents who are in the country illegally.
The order, which constitutional experts have said faces steep legal hurdles, impacts children in cases where neither parent is a U.S. citizen. It makes good on a promise that originated during Trump's first administration, though it was never carried out during his first four years in the White House.
In addition to asking a federal court to block the order, Lawyers for Civil Rights, which filed the complaint, said it sought to highlight the "dire consequences" of the administration's policy.
"It would de-Americanize children and, as a result, deny them precious rights, legal protections, and the benefits that come with them, like access to critical documents such as passports and Social Security numbers," LCR said. "Affected children would be stripped of their national identity, stigmatized by their government as a class of 'lesser' Americans, and forced to live with the uncertainty and fear that comes with the possibility of deportation from their native land."
The complaint quoted the U.S. Supreme Court's 1958 ruling in Trop v. Dulles
, which held that revoking citizenship as punishment for a crime is unconstitutional, amounts to "the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society," and "is a form of punishment more primitive than torture.""This executive order is a brutal and unconstitutional attempt to redefine what it means to be an American," LCR executive director Iván Espinoza-Madrigal said in a statement. "The Constitution is clear: birthplace, not parentage, determines citizenship in this country. This lawsuit is about ensuring that the fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution are upheld."
A White House representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The plaintiffs are represented by Lawyers for Civil Rights.
Counsel information for the government was not immediately available.
The case is O. Doe et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al., case number 1:25-cv-10133, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Editing by Daniel King.