Legal Groups That Secured Supreme Court Birthright Victory Move to Protect Babies From Trump’s Latest Attacks on Citizenship

CONCORD, N.H. — Legal groups that recently won a major Supreme Court victory on behalf of babies who would have been denied citizenship under a failed Trump executive order are asking a court to ensure those children remain protected from the president’s latest attacks.

The Supreme Court handed the civil rights organizations a resounding win on June 30 in Trump v. Barbara, when it struck down the president’s order that sought to undo this fundamental constitutional protection. Last week, the president signed a new executive order again targeting birthright citizenship.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund successfully argued the Barbara case. Today, they asked a federal court to make it unquestionably clear that the citizenship of babies covered by that class-action lawsuit is protected despite this new executive order.

In its June ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause puts “the question of citizenship ‘once and forever [to] rest.’”

In their motion filed today in New Hampshire federal court, where the lawsuit was first filed, the legal groups wrote: “The Supreme Court confirmed that there are no additional exceptions beyond those recognized in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and the Fourteenth Amendment is not subject to executive (or legislative) revision. President Trump’s continued resistance to that principle calls for this Court’s renewed intervention.”

The following is comment on today’s filing:

“President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right, and he may not like that he lost in the Supreme Court, but that is really beside the point,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel. “It’s well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children’s citizenship to end.”

“The Supreme Court could not have been more clear: President Trump’s attempt to redefine who is an American citizen through executive action was unconstitutional,” said Amia Trigg, deputy director of litigation at the Legal Defense Fund. “Now, the president is trying to double down on his illegal attack on this constitutional protection. We will not stand idly by as the executive branch blatantly ignores the court's authority in its crusade against American children.”

“This order is a desperate and brazen attempt to bypass the Supreme Court’s decision and expand a very narrow set of exceptions to the 14th Amendment. As the court has already affirmed, it’s the Constitution, not the president, who determines who is American and who gets a say in our democracy. Americans are struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills, and this administration is just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus. “Immigrant communities know that our rights are on the line, especially when the government uses us as scapegoats. The Trump administration already lost once and it will lose again.”

“President Trump’s latest attempt to chip away at birthright citizenship is as constitutionally futile as it is cruel,” said Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund. “We’ve seen this strategy from this administration before, and the courts have repeatedly made it clear that the 14th Amendment cannot be rewritten by executive fiat. We are filing this motion to ensure that the protections currently shielding our clients remain intact — we will not let the administration use babies as pawns in a political stunt like this.”

SangYeob Kim, director of the ACLU-NH Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, “Birthright citizenship is the law of the land — period. Cruel attacks on this core constitutional right must not be allowed to stand.”

“The Supreme Court reaffirmed the plain language of the Constitution in June, making it clear that neither the president nor Congress can end birthright citizenship,” said ACLU of Maine Executive Director Molly Curren Rowles. “We’ll continue defending the Constitution and the core principles reflected in the 14th Amendment: that with few exceptions, every baby born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen.”

“Trump's executive orders are a ham-handed attempt to distract the American people from the Supreme Court’s clear holding: that birthright citizenship is protected by our Constitution,” said Carol Rose, executive director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. “We'll stay in court for as long as it takes to secure peace of mind for our clients and ensure that babies born on U.S. soil have their rights as guaranteed under U.S. law.”

Read the motion here.