The Supreme Court will hear arguments starting Wednesday for a lawsuit by the ACLU challenging President Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of some immigrants.
It’s one of many legal challenges against the 2025 executive order. The question at the heart of this class-action lawsuit Trump v. Barbara is whether the administration’s restrictions on birthright citizenship are constitutional.
SangYeob Kim is the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at ACLU-NH. He’ll be in the Supreme Court this week as this case is argued, and he spoke with NHPR’s Michelle Liu.
Transcript
So what's at stake here?
Stake is very high. It's really the meaning of the 14th Amendment as a matter of law, whether the 14th Amendment, the Constitution, does protect and provide the U.S. citizenship to all children who are born in the United States, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.
It's not only about the immigration status. It's actually a lot more than that. If the Supreme Court agrees with the executive order, then it will create the multi-class. And then the children, babies who are born will only know about that when they grow, when they go to school.
So what's the ACLU's argument for why the order is unconstitutional?
So it's unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment, the text is clear that it provides the citizenship to all children [born on U.S. soil]. And also the Supreme Court decided this question in 1898 through the Wong Kim Ark [case]. So it's not like there's a vacuum of the legal theory or legal support, but it really has not been contested for more than 120 years. And that's not only the evidence. In 1950s, the Congress also understood and agreed with us and created the statute, another law, that is the same as what the Supreme Court did in Wong Kim Ark. So it was essentially undisputed until last year.
So it is essentially using the executive order to change or affect the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment without actually going through the process to amend the Constitution.
There's been other legal challenges against this executive order, including one filed by your ACLU chapter here in New Hampshire. What's different about this case, Trump v. Barbara?
Yes. So we filed two cases. The first one was the same day of the executive order being issued. That is the Indonesian Community Support group. And the second case is, unlike the first case, it's a nationwide class action, which means that this case represents all babies born and who are affected by the executive order, regardless of the geographic limitations.
So which means if the Supreme Court agrees with us, then this ruling will apply to all babies who have been born since the issuance of the executive order and the future babies, and I want to emphasize parents too.
So this executive order is not really narrow. It's really broad in a way that it affects international students, asylum seekers, immigrants who have had a working visa or who are waiting for the green card, but because of the quota or system and because the process takes a very long time, there's waiting for a green card. So it affects our neighbors, our children's friends and a lot of people in New Hampshire too.
