First Focus on Children has filed an amicus brief in the case that brings birthright citizenship before the Supreme Court. Bruce Lesley, the group’s president, explains what they had to say.
First Focus on Children, in partnership with the Center on Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and others, filed an amicus brief in Trump v. Barbara (No. 25-365), urging the Supreme Court to affirm what the Fourteenth Amendment has guaranteed for over 157 years: that every baby born in the United States is a citizen and that President Trump’s Executive Order 14160 is unconstitutional.
As we argued to the Supreme Court:
In the United States, citizenship at birth is a fundamental right. By operation of the Fourteenth Amendment, every baby born within our borders claims citizenship equally, regardless of parentage, ethnic heritage, race, or any other factor.
Even though it is right there in the name – “birth” – policymakers and the media often ignore the critically important children’s angle to this and other policy issues. Children, and in this case, babies, are often treated as an afterthought.
For many years, we have been trying to make this point. This newsletter has made the case that birthright citizenship is a constitutional bedrock for babies and has covered the recent congressional hearings, the SCOTUS oral arguments on injunctions against President Trump’s Executive Order, the chaos that followed, and the bureaucratic nightmare that would be imposed on maternity wards and in the homes of every baby born across the country if President Trump’s executive fiat were to have its way.
Now, for the first time, the Supreme Court will rule on the merits of the Executive Order – on whether the President of the United States can unilaterally rewrite the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause with the stroke of a pen.
Along with our partners, First Focus on Children is arguing to the Supreme Court that the President cannot overturn this fundamental constitutional right for babies and children unilaterally. Doing so would do irreparable harm to the lives of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of babies and children in the process.
The most important thing about our amicus brief – and about this case – is something the legal debate has consistently buried: the Fourteenth Amendment is about babies and children, not their parents.
The plain text could not be clearer. The Citizenship Clause reads:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.
BORN. That is the operative word. Not descended. Not parentally sponsored. Not documented. BORN.
The constitutional subject is a baby, at the moment of birth, and on American soil.