Barbara v. Trump – Class Action to Protect Birthright Citizenship

We sued the Trump administration for trying to end birthright citizenship, a core American principle that is outlined in the plain language of the 14th Amendment. The case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 1, 2026. On June 30, 2026, we won.

The lawsuit was in response to the June 27, 2025, Supreme Court ruling that potentially opened the door for partial enforcement of the executive order. (Learn more about a nationwide class that protects the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil.)

Following the Supreme Court's ruling limiting nationwide injunctions, this new class action case sought to protect all families in the country, filling potential gaps that may have been left by the previous litigation.

This lawsuit charged the Trump administration with flouting the Constitution, congressional intent, and longstanding Supreme Court precedent – and it was national in scope.

On July 10, 2025, the district court preliminarily blocked President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship and provisionally certified a nationwide class that protected the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil.

On Sept. 26, 2025, the government asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case and bypass an appeal to the First Circuit for the U.S. Court of Appeals. The ACLU filed its response on Oct. 29, 2025. On Dec. 5, 2025, the Supreme Court issued an order accepting the case. The court heard oral arguments on April 1, 2026.

The case was filed by the ACLU of Maine, ACLU, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of a class of babies subject to the executive order, and their parents.

The same group of organizations filed a similar suit in January 2025 in the same court, on behalf of groups with members whose babies born on U.S. soil would have been denied citizenship under the order, including New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support, League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and Make the Road New York. The court issued a ruling protecting members of those organizations.

Three other lawsuits originally obtained nationwide injunctions protecting everyone subject to the executive order, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 27 decision narrowed those injunctions, potentially leaving some children without protection.

Birthright citizenship is the principle that every baby born in the United States is a U.S. citizen. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the citizenship of all children born in the United States (with the extremely narrow exception of children of foreign diplomats) regardless of race, color, or ancestry. Specifically, it states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

The 14th Amendment was a core part of Reconstruction following the Civil War, and birthright citizenship had been a settled argument since.

On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld our victory defending birthright citizenship. In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that President Trump's executive order violated both the 14th Amendment and federal law. In a 5-4 opinion, the Court also ruled that Congress cannot end birthright citizenship through an act of law. Despite the president's claims that Congress can pass a law similar to his failed executive order, the Court made it clear that such a law would be unconstitutional.

This decision reaffirms a principle that has been settled for more than 150 years: if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen of the United States. This is a major victory for all Americans.

The president signed a new executive order on August 6, once again targeting birthright citizenship and flying in the face of the Court’s ruling, which confirmed that the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause puts “the question of citizenship ‘once and forever [to] rest.’”

Along with our partners, we asked a federal court to make it unquestionably clear that the citizenship of babies covered by that class-action lawsuit is protected despite this new executive order. The legal groups wrote: “The Supreme Court confirmed that there are no additional exceptions beyond those recognized in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and the Fourteenth Amendment is not subject to executive (or legislative) revision. President Trump’s continued resistance to that principle calls for this Court’s renewed intervention.”

The motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, where the lawsuit was first filed.