New York City’s immigrant communities and legal advocacy groups representing them said they are breathing a sigh of relief Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, striking down an executive order from President Donald Trump that would have ended the practice.
The country’s high court, in its 6-3 decision, said it recognized the nation’s “ancient” rule that citizenship extends to all who are born in the United States, regardless of whether the person they’re born to is here legally, because the United States’ jurisdiction includes all within its borders.
“Arguments for limiting birthright citizenship to those domiciled in the United States fail,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the court’s majority opinion. “Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship.”
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Roberts continued in an opinion signed onto in part by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and in full by Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “We keep that promise today.”
The ACLU, which brought the case in defense of birthright citizenship, commended the decision, with Cecillia Wang, the organization’s national legal director who argued before the high court, saying it “reaffirms a fundamental American promise — if you are born here, you are a citizen.”
“A president cannot change the Constitution by executive fiat,” Wang said.
However, immigrant groups and lawyers said they are not letting their guards down yet, pointing to the continued heightened ICE enforcement across the city and the high court’s ruling last week to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians.
That decision will effectively strip roughly 40,000 New Yorkers of legal status in less than a month and open the door for the administration to cut off TPS for over a million people from other countries who are legally living and working here on that provision.
“We can breathe a sigh of relief today,” said Harold Solis, a legal director for immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York. “But it doesn’t erase everything else that’s happening right now. We’ve seen in the last year even citizens have sometimes been subjected to the forces of immigration enforcement, so I don’t think this solves everything. I don’t think people should assume that everything will change for the better as of today.”
Advocates rally in Foley Square after Tuesday’s ruling.
At least, Solis said, people no longer have to worry about being stripped of their birthright citizenship. Today’s ruling means that any potential future attempt by the administration to challenge their legal standing won’t be successful.
“I don’t think the court could have been clearer that the guarantee of birthright citizenship is promised by the Constitution, and that means that no president, not even President Trump, can unilaterally try to rewrite the Constitution to strip people of that rank,” Solis said. “That, to me, confirms that there’s no way for a president to do what President Trump tried to do last year.”
Immigrant advocates vow to fight on against other Trump policies
Advocates speak on the importance of birthright citizenship.
Dozens of advocates and lawyers gathered in Foley Square hours after Tuesday’s ruling to celebrate and emphasize that they’d continue pushing back against legal attacks on immigrants.
“Today’s ruling means that hundreds of thousands of families can breathe a little bit easier and know that their child is here to stay,” said New York Immigration Coalition President Murad Awawdeh. “Not even the Trump administration can take away their constitutional right to belong here. But let’s be clear on one thing: The attempt to end birthright citizenship isn’t an isolated attack. It’s part of the Trump administration’s broader campaign to go to war against immigrants who make this country what it is.”
Faiza Ali, the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said the court’s decision upholds one of the Constitution’s clearest guarantees.
“Generations of immigrants have come to New York in pursuit of safety, opportunity, and the chance to build a better future for themselves and their families,” Ali said. “In doing so, they have fortified our city and created a blueprint for our nation – one that recognizes that diversity is our profound strength.”
Advocates celebrate the 14th Amendment after Tuesday’s ruling.
Mamdani echoed his commissioner’s sentiment, calling the ruling a rejection of the federal government’s attempt to rewrite the Constitution in an effort to arbitrarily decide who belongs in the country and who doesn’t.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling affirms a promise that was written into our Constitution more than 150 years ago: if you are born on American soil, you are an American citizen, no matter the color of your skin, where your parents were born, how you worship, or the language you speak at home,” Mamdani said. This should never have been in doubt.”
“New York City is living proof of the power of birthright citizenship,” the mayor added. The children of immigrants are our teachers, nurses, construction workers, small business owners, artists, public servants and neighbors. So, to every immigrant family across the five boroughs: hear me clearly. You belong here. Your children belong here.”
That’s a message particularly important to Abby, a DACA recipient and single mother of three children who are U.S. citizens by birth.
“Last year, I was pregnant when the Trump administration signed an executive order attempting to take away birthright citizenship,” she said. “Every day since that executive order was signed until the day I gave birth, I wondered if my newborn would be considered a US citizen and what would happen to him? What would his birth certificate say? What country would he belong to?”
“I was anxious, worried, sad,” said Abby, who didn’t share her last name. “Ending birthright citizenship would create chaos and uncertainty for all families.”
Attorneys, advocates and government officials speak in Foley Square.
Attorney General Letitia James, who joined a coalition of attorneys general across the country to file a suit parallel to the ACLU’s also challenging Trump’s executive order attempting to strike down birthright citizenship that secured a court decision preventing Trump’s order from going into effect as the legal process played out, said she had children like Abby’s in mind when considering how grateful she was for the high court’s decision.
“I am relieved for the children who will never know how close the American dream came to being taken from them, and for the families who will never have to explain to a child why the country they were born in refuses to accept them,” James said in a statement. “Every person born in the United States is an American. That was true yesterday, it is true today, and we will never stop fighting to make sure it remains true tomorrow.”
When asked for comment on the ruling, Trump’s Department of Justice pointed amNewYork to a social media post it had made earlier in the day referencing its arguments to the high court that birthright citizenship allows for “birth tourism,” and that the 14th Amendment should be reinterpreted to fit today’s reality, which they allege involves a widespread practice of people are travelling to the United States just to have a child so they can obtain legal status themselves down the line.
“Birth tourism schemes exploit our immigration laws and often violate our criminal law,” the post reads. “The Department of Justice will prioritize the prosecutions of birth tourism schemes across the country.”