WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to President Trump’s birthright citizenship ban, a sweeping executive order that has been repeatedly blocked by lower courts as unconstitutional, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order excluding babies whose mother was present on U.S. territory unlawfully or on a temporary status, and whose father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident, from U.S. citizenship. According to the ACLU, lower courts have repeatedly blocked the Trump administration from implementing the executive order, finding it unconstitutional.
The ACLU reported that Barbara is a nationwide class action case brought by the ACLU, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus and Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of babies who would be subject to the executive order. A federal court granted a preliminary injunction that protects all children born on U.S. soil.
As the Fourteenth Amendment states, “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.” The ACLU argued that President Trump’s executive order ignored the Constitution, longstanding Supreme Court precedent, a law passed by Congress and fundamental American values.
ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang asserted that “no president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship.” She said the ACLU looks forward to putting the citizenship issue “once and for all” before the Supreme Court this term.
The ACLU noted that in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court ruled that children born to noncitizens in the United States are citizens of the United States, denouncing the administration’s efforts and stating that “the Trump administration’s attempts to unilaterally rewrite the 14th Amendment … will not stand.”
Asian Law Caucus Executive Director Aarti Kohli stressed that relitigating the nation’s well-established constitutional law is a waste of judicial resources and time. The ACLU further emphasized that “every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional.”
The ACLU highlighted that the executive order would require all parents, including U.S. citizens, to show proof of their immigration or citizenship status to obtain basic official documents for their children, such as birth certificates or Social Security numbers. She stated that the order would be “leading to racial profiling based on names, appearance or accents.”
Democracy Defenders Fund Executive Director Tiana Mays expressed outrage at what she described as an attack on the U.S. Constitution and its established rights. She said she was confident in the judicial system, stating, “We are confident the court will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century.” She emphasized that American families “deserve and require that clarity and stability.”
SangYeob Kim of the ACLU of New Hampshire and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project said no single politician has the right to decide “who among those born in this country is worthy of citizenship.” He said he will fight to ensure citizenship rights for children born in the United States so they do not become “relegated to a permanent, multigenerational subclass of people born in the U.S. but who are denied full rights.”
ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director Carol Rose reaffirmed those concerns, saying Trump’s creation of what she described as an unlawful regime would cause some U.S.-born babies to be treated as “second-class citizens based on their parentage.” She added that the ACLU will not allow the Trump administration to “take a sledgehammer to the foundations of that society.”
On behalf of the New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Make the Road New York, legal groups also brought a birthright citizenship lawsuit. The three organizations have large memberships whose babies would be denied citizenship under the order.
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Is that a human being holding up that sign? And if not, what planet are they a citizen of?