Civil Rights Groups Ask Court to Shield Babies From Trump's New Birthright Citizenship Orders

Since the Supreme Court's June 30 ruling in Trump v. Barbara struck down his first birthright citizenship order, President Trump has signed a second attempt aimed at the same constitutional guarantee. The legal groups who won that Supreme Court case are now back in court asking a judge to make sure their victory still counts.

On August 6, Trump signed two new executive orders: "Ending Birth Tourism" and "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," according to a White House fact sheet. Both are narrower than the 2025 order the Supreme Court rejected, but both still try to carve new exceptions into the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee.

On August 11, the ACLU, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, the Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund filed a motion in the same New Hampshire federal court where they first sued, asking the judge to explicitly confirm the babies covered by the original class-action are still protected under the new orders.

"President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right, and he may not like that he lost in the Supreme Court, but that is really beside the point," said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project and lead counsel on the case. "These illegal and cruel attacks on children's citizenship need to end."

Amia Trigg, deputy director of litigation at the Legal Defense Fund, said: "We will not stand idly by as the executive branch blatantly ignores the court's authority in its crusade against American children."

What the new orders actually do

The first order defines "birth tourism" as a foreign national entering the U.S. on a nonimmigrant visa specifically to give birth here, and it targets both the individuals and any businesses that help arrange it, according to visalawyerblog.com. It gives