Free Speech For People and pro bono co-counsel Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP today filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in support of plaintiffs who are challenging Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to strip citizenship from American-born children on the basis of their parents’ immigration status, in clear defiance of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On Day 1 of his second term, Trump issued a clearly unconstitutional executive order that would deprive people born in the United States of their constitutionally guaranteed citizenship if their parents are not citizens or permanent residents. Three groups of plaintiffs—including a group in Maryland lead by CASA, Inc.—swiftly challenged the order, and in each case the district court issued a nationwide preliminary injunctions to block the executive order from going into effect. The plaintiffs are now opposing Trump’s appeal of these rulings. FSFP’s amicus brief supports CASA’s opposition.

In its brief, FSFP reviews the clear language of the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause, the common law origins of birthright citizenship, and the Amendment’s legislative history to establish that the clause confers citizenship on nearly all persons born in this country regardless of their parentage—and that this necessarily includes American-born children of parents and communities that the government disfavors.

The Trump Administration claims that that it has the authority to ignore the plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment because the United States faces some heretofore unprecedented threat of immigration by undesirable people. It does not. And, in fact, the Framers knew that without the Fourteenth Amendment’s constraints, future governments would use precisely this excuse to limit the individual rights of marginalized communities, beginning but certainly not ending with the erosion of American-born children’s access to citizenship, and ultimately undermining our democracy.

“The United States rejected Trump’s vision for citizenship more than 150 years ago,” said Courtney Hostetler, Legal Director of Free Speech For People. “The plain text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment make it clear that birthright citizenship cannot be denied certain people based on their parentage, and that our Framers understood how vital the protections of birthright citizenship are to our children, our communities, and our democracy as a whole.”

Free Speech For People is honored for the opportunity to submit this brief with our pro bono co-counsel Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, in support of the plaintiff-appellees in this important case.

To read the amicus brief, click here.