WASHINGTON, DC – Human rights groups have launched a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s recent efforts to limit the automatic granting of birthright citizenship to infants born in the country.
The group, which successfully defeated President Trump’s previous efforts to more broadly abolish so-called birthright citizenship at the U.S. Supreme Court, launched its latest challenge Tuesday in federal court in the U.S. state of New Hampshire.
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The case comes days after President Trump signed two new executive orders on the issue, one of which expands a narrow category within the Fourteenth Amendment that already says some individuals are not automatically eligible for citizenship at birth. Another order called on the heads of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to take steps to prevent mothers from traveling to the United States solely for the purpose of giving birth, known as “birth tourism.”
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defense Fund argued that the Supreme Court’s June decision striking down President Trump’s previous attempts to limit birthright citizenship makes it impossible to “reform” existing exemptions based on both the U.S. Constitution and past Supreme Court decisions.
“The Supreme Court could not have made a clearer decision: President Trump’s attempt to redefine who is an American citizen through his actions was unconstitutional,” said Amir Trigg, associate director of litigation at the Legal Defense Fund.
“Now, the president is stepping up his illegal attacks on this constitutional protection, and we cannot stand by and watch the executive branch blatantly ignore the authority of the courts in its campaign against America’s children,” she said.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and the architect of his tough approach on immigration, previously vowed to pursue a long-term challenge to the Supreme Court’s June decision. However, the administration missed the deadline in late July to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling.
Lawyers for the administration had argued that birthright citizenship has been misunderstood since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, arguing that the clause does not guarantee citizenship to anyone in the country but to the children of newly freed slaves.
A 6-3 ruling by the conservative-majority Supreme Court refuted that position, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying “the evidence for this dramatically revisionist view is scant.”
“The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘all persons born free in this land,'” he wrote. “Today I will keep that promise.”
Court officials have called President Trump’s recent efforts to restrict birthright citizenship a stress test for the Supreme Court’s June ruling, but it’s unclear whether the justices will ultimately be willing to hear the case or consider the issue settled.
Six justices voted against the Trump administration, but one conservative justice, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, rejected the idea that the administration’s efforts were unconstitutional. Some supporters of Trump’s efforts say it sustains hopes that new cases will succeed if they reach the Supreme Court.
His executive order sought to expand the current exception under the 14th Amendment, which prohibits automatic citizenship to infants of foreign diplomats or invading troops. The document directed government agencies not to “issue documents recognizing U.S. citizenship” to diplomatic personnel living in the United States, children identified as members of “terrorist organizations,” people deemed to be participating in “business transactions” that ensure children are born in the United States, and certain people born on U.S. territory.
The new move comes as several Republicans seek to emphasize birthright citizenship ahead of November’s midterm elections, arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision has turned the issue into a rallying point for conservatives.
It remains unclear whether the approach will gain traction, with opinion polls regularly showing broad support for the practice, even as other immigration issues prove more divisive.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, one of the groups challenging Trump’s latest efforts, said in a statement that the administration is “just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.”
“Immigrant communities know that our rights are at stake, especially when governments use us as scapegoats,” she says. “The Trump administration has already lost once and will lose again.”
