The National Immigrant Justice Center welcomes today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling which declined to uphold President Trump’s unconstitutional attempts to undo birthright citizenship. After years of legal skirmishing, the Supreme Court affirmed, in a 5-4 ruling, that anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen, even if their parents lack legal status.
“The Supreme Court today affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution offers citizenship to anyone born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. This is an interpretation that Americans have shared for over a century,” said NIJC Director of Appellate Litigation Charles Roth. “It is an appalling commentary on the state of the law that the Administration’s far-fetched theory came within one vote of becoming the law of the country.”
While today’s ruling brings great relief for NIJC and our immigrant communities, it also affirms that we must continue fighting to uphold our nation’s promise of equal justice for all. The attack on birthright citizenship was a thinly veiled attempt by the Trump administration and anti-immigrant extremists to try to justify a racist political agenda that continues to find new ways to harm American communities and tear families apart. In light of other recent Court decisions, which joined the Trump administration in dismantling U.S. laws that have been in place for generations to offer refuge to people fleeing persecution, violence, and natural disasters, NIJC will continue to seek justice for all our immigrant communities and equal treatment under the law.