The American Civil Liberties Union has moved to block President Trump's latest executive order restricting birthright citizenship, arguing that the new measure is merely a rehash of the policy the Supreme Court already struck down.
In a filing Tuesday, the ACLU asked U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante to clarify that the government cannot use any executive action to deny citizenship to children covered by a class-action lawsuit that led to the earlier ruling. The group contends that Trump's new order, which targets children of foreign government employees, alien enemies, and so-called birth tourists, still runs afoul of the constitutional guarantee of citizenship for those born on U.S. soil.
“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, the ACLU's lead counsel and deputy director of its Immigrants' Rights Project. “It's well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children's citizenship to end.”
The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the ACLU's motion.
Trump's new order, unveiled last week, is narrower than his original Day 1 attempt, which would have denied citizenship to any child born in the U.S. unless at least one parent was a citizen or lawful permanent resident. The Supreme Court in June ruled that broad policy unconstitutional. The president insists the revised version aligns with narrow constitutional exceptions and should survive legal scrutiny.
The ACLU is not filing a new lawsuit. Instead, it is asking Laplante, a George W. Bush appointee in New Hampshire, to rule that the government remains barred from stripping citizenship from anyone in the class covered by the earlier case. The motion argues that 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 procedural path is still winding through the courts. The Supreme Court's formal judgment was not sent back to the appeals court until earlier this month, and that court has not yet returned the case to Laplante. The ACLU on Tuesday also asked the appeals court to expedite that remand.
This legal fight comes amid broader debates over immigration and citizenship policy. Some conservative voices have backed Trump's push, framing it as a necessary step against birth tourism, while critics warn it undermines constitutional protections. The outcome could have wide implications for how executive power is wielded on immigration matters.
