Sheehy signs on to brief arguing for end to birthright citizenship

Montana U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy has added his name to an amicus brief supporting the Trump administration’s effort to challenge the United States’ longstanding policy of granting citizenship to nearly any child born in the country as the matter is heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sheehy is one of 12 Republican senators and 16 Republican representatives who have signed onto a brief headlined by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, which argues for a narrower interpretation of which children count as falling under U.S. “jurisdiction” for the purposes of the automatic citizenship guarantee enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

“The Framers would have recoiled at the present debasement of citizenship, understanding that ‘jurisdiction’ requires more than mere physical presence,” the brief reads in part. “It demands total allegiance to the sovereign. To hold otherwise places sovereignty, citizenship, and our nation’s survival in jeopardy.”

The case arises from President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order that sought to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship to babies born to parents who are in the U.S. temporarily or without legal authorization. That order was subsequently challenged by civil liberties groups, which have argued the Trump administration’s position conflicts with the longstanding interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause as applying to all U.S.-born children with narrow exceptions, such as children born to foreign diplomats or invading soldiers.

The 14th Amendment, ratified following the Civil War in 1868 to grant citizenship to former slaves, specifies in part that “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.”

Sheehy’s involvement in the brief was criticized this week in a statement by Michael Black Wolf, a Fort Belknap Indian Community member who is seeking the Democratic party’s nomination to challenge Montana’s other U.S. senator, Republican Steve Daines, in this year’s election.

Black Wolf faulted the brief in part for citing an 1884 case where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Native Americans shouldn’t be granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment because they owed allegiance to their tribes.

“He wants to replace our birth right with a litmus test of earning your citizenship through ‘singular allegiance,’” Black Wolf wrote. “Senator Sheehy is reviving the logic that being ‘too Indian’ makes you ‘less American.’ This is a 19th-century prejudice being used as 21st-century law.”

The 1884 ruling was later superseded by an act of Congress, the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

Daines, a Republican, is not among the lawmakers who signed onto the Cruz brief. A Daines spokesperson, Gabby Wiggins, didn’t provide answers to questions from Montana Free Press Wednesday about why Daines didn’t sign onto the brief and about his specific opinion of birthright citizenship but did provide a statement emphasizing the senator’s general support for the president’s immigration policies.

“Sen. Daines supports the administration’s immigration policies to secure the border and enforce the rule of law and looks forward to this case being before the Supreme Court,” Wiggins wrote.