WASHINGTON, D.C. – Invoking Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” as a cultural touchstone, the American Civil Liberties Union is mounting a high-stakes defense of the 14th Amendment before the Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara, challenging an executive order that would strip birthright citizenship from infants born to immigrant parents after Feb. 19, 2025, a move the organization argues threatens a core constitutional guarantee.
Birthright citizenship, as the ACLU argues, is integral to the promise of the American dream.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, states: “As the ACLU prepares to defend this bedrock principle in the highest court of the land, we are joined by millions of Americans who agree that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution — not President Trump — decides who is a citizen.”
If the courts allow Trump to implement this executive order, babies born to parents without permanent legal status will enter an unprecedented state of uncertainty.
They would belong to no nation, and a new class of labeling would emerge from the already toxic practice that alienates legal and nonlegal immigrants alike, according to the ACLU.
The U.S. has a long and complicated history with citizenship, and the Trump administration’s attempts at mass deportation and revocation of birthright citizenship will further complicate an already disarrayed system of immigration, as the ACLU reports.
Birthright citizenship has been jeopardized in several historical events, including the 1857 Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, which came prior to the enactment of the 14th Amendment.
The case concluded that African Americans and enslaved people were not citizens, denying a generation of freed and enslaved African Americans citizenship.
Later, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 allocated provisional citizenship, which then became fully realized as a permanent pillar of the Constitution with the 14th Amendment in 1868, overturning Dred Scott v. Sanford.
According to the executive order, in an effort to defend the removal of birthright citizenship claims, Dred Scott v. Sanford “misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race,” in addition to claiming the 14th Amendment is exclusively for U.S. citizens.
The ACLU proclaims, “Ending birthright citizenship would upend the law and the lives of hundreds of thousands of families by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the United States who are denied their rights as American citizens.”
The ACLU states, “Multiple courts have found the policy unconstitutional and inconsistent with longstanding Supreme Court precedent.”
The lingering uncertainty of status is already complicated for immigrants seeking asylum, citizenship or residency.
Children who become wards of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are subject to abuse, lack basic needs and do not have skills to advocate for themselves.
Many children in immigration custody are placed in shelters or detention centers that lack medical, educational and mental care.
In 2014, President Barack Obama issued a docket to prioritize child immigration cases, which resulted in 94 percent of children being deported as their legal representatives did not have enough time to build a defense for them, according to Valeria Luiselli’s “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions.”
The national legal director of the ACLU, Cecillia Wang, states, “It’s for that reason that birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment — and no president has the power to rewrite the Constitution. We’ll prove it in the Supreme Court.”
According to the ACLU, “Birthright citizenship has long been one of the clearest expressions of the American promise: that anyone born here is part of our national community.”
People from all walks of life are represented in the ACLU’s campaign titled “The Beat,” which was aired nationally on major television networks, featuring artist Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born in the U.S.A.,” directed by Anderson Write, in addition to co-contributors such as Creative Artists Agency and Stink.
ACLU press states, “What begins as a solitary rhythm in an empty middle school band room builds into a cross-country portrait of people working, learning, celebrating, and contributing to their communities.”
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