ACLU Asks Judge to Block Trump's New Birthright Citizenship Order

The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups have asked a federal judge to block President Donald Trump from enforcing new executive orders he signed last week aimed at restricting eligibility for birthright citizenship in the United States.

In a Tuesday court filing in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, the groups called Trump's new orders an improper attempt to evade the Supreme Court's June 30 rejection of his first, broader effort to deny automatic citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents. The Supreme Court had ruled that Trump's original executive order, issued on his first day back in office, violated the 14th Amendment.

"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. It asked the court to make clear that the government may not strip away citizenship from members of the affected class through executive orders or other similar assertions of executive power.

A White House spokesperson said the administration "has always followed court orders" and that its actions since the Supreme Court's rulings are "consistent with the holdings and analysis set forth by the court."

Trump has made eliminating birthright citizenship a central goal of his second-term immigration agenda, though he has so far been unsuccessful in court. On Thursday, he criticized the Supreme Court's June ruling as "a very unfortunate decision" and said his administration is "making adjustments because it's very unfair."

His latest orders, signed August 6, seek to broaden the categories of children ineligible for automatic citizenship and specifically target so-called "birth tourism," in which people travel to the U.S. to give birth to secure citizenship for their child.

Historical exceptions to the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause have included children born to foreign sovereigns and diplomats, children of occupying foreign forces, children born on foreign ships, and children of Indigenous Americans.

Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement: "President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right. That is really beside the point. It's well past time for these illegal and cruel attacks on children's citizenship to end."