ACLU and Immigrant Rights Groups Challenge Trump's Latest Executive Orders on Birthright Citizenship

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigrant rights groups have asked a federal judge to stop US President Donald Trump from enforcing his latest executive orders aimed at limiting who can receive birthright citizenship in the United States. In a court filing on Tuesday, the groups said Trump’s new orders were an attempt to get around a US Supreme Court decision from June 30 that rejected his earlier effort to restrict birthright citizenship . The groups argued that the latest orders should not be allowed to weaken an earlier court order protecting children who are entitled to US citizenship. Trump has made ending or limiting birthright citizenship a major part of his immigration crackdown. His first executive order on the issue was signed on the day he began his second term last year. It sought to deny US citizenship to children born in the country if their parents were not US citizens or lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders. The Supreme Court later found that the order violated the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. The groups said Trump was now trying to achieve the same goal through his latest orders. “Despite the Supreme Court’s clear direction, the President continues to claim for himself the power to identify categories of children whose citizenship he intends to deny,” the filing said, according to Reuters. “The court should underscore that the government may not strip away class members’ citizenship through any executive orders or other similarly flawed assertions of executive power over birthright citizenship.” The White House rejected the accusation and said the administration was following the court’s decisions. A White House spokesperson said, “The Trump Administration has always followed court orders. All actions taken by the President since the recent Supreme Court rulings are consistent with the holdings and analysis set forth by the court.” Trump signed the latest orders on August 6, targeting “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can automatically receive US citizenship. Under the new orders, citizenship would also be denied to certain children whose parents work for foreign governments in the United States, commit fraud to obtain citizenship or are classified as “alien enemies.” Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, he called the Supreme Court’s decision “very unfortunate” and said that “people are building businesses around” birth tourism. “It’s a disgrace,” Trump said. “They’re buying their way in, and we’re not going to let it happen.” Trump’s original order had gone much further. It targeted children born to immigrants who were in the US illegally as well as those whose parents were in the country temporarily, including students and people holding work visas. The latest filing was made in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire. The groups want the judge overseeing the case to make it clear that Trump’s new orders cannot affect children who are already protected by an earlier injunction. Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, said Trump’s personal views about birthright citizenship were not relevant to whether the right could be taken away. “President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right,” Wofsy said in a statement to Reuters. “That is really beside the point. It’s well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children’s citizenship to end.” The groups are seeking to prevent the administration from using the new orders to deny citizenship to children covered by the existing court protections. The Centre for Immigration Studies, which supports lower levels of immigration, estimated in 2020 that between 20,000 and 26,000 mothers enter the United States each year. The wider number of births in the country is far higher. US government data show that about 3.61 million babies were born in the United States in 2025. The legal fight over birthright citizenship is expected to continue as Trump’s administration tries to put his new orders into effect while immigrant rights groups argue that the president cannot use executive power to take away a constitutional right.