President Trump said this week that he is preparing an executive order to try to take away the citizenship guarantee in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that people born in the United States are United States citizens. On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham announced that he would introduce legislation with the same aim.
But the president cannot repeal part of the Constitution by executive order. And Congress cannot repeal it by simply passing a new bill. Amending the Constitution would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, and also ratification by three-quarters of the states. The effort to erase the citizenship guarantee will never clear those hurdles — for very good reasons.
Birthright citizenship is one of the bedrocks of this country. More than 150 years ago, the 14th Amendment guaranteed to all those born within the United States citizenship, without regard to parentage, skin color, or ethnicity. And the Supreme Court ruled, more than 100 years ago, that the citizenship guarantee applies fully to U.S.-born children whose parents have no right to citizenship.
Before the amendment was enacted, American citizenship was controlled by the abhorrent 1857 Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford. In that case, the justices found that Black people born in the United States were not citizens, but rather a “subordinate and inferior class of beings” with “no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.” Neither slaves, nor freed slaves, nor their descendants could ever become citizens, the justices ruled.
After the Civil War, Congress overruled Dred Scott by passing the 14th Amendment. The definition of citizenship is part of its very first sentence: “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.” In one sweep, the clause guaranteed citizenship to previously enslaved people and their children — and ensured that the law would never again perpetuate a multigenerational, permanent underclass of individuals barred from American citizenship.
In 1898, the Supreme Court confirmed that the 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil, no matter what their parents’ status. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the justices found that a baby born in San Francisco to parents who were citizens of China — and subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited them from becoming U.S. citizens themselves — was automatically a citizen at birth. The court specifically rejected the argument that a child in those circumstances was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and thus excluded from the Constitution’s citizenship guarantee.
Only a few categories of people are excluded: children of foreign diplomats, children of enemy soldiers present in the U.S. during an occupation, and children of Native American tribes, who have American citizenship under a separate provision of law.
At least since 1898, there has been no serious question about whether children born in the United States can be denied American citizenship because of the status of their parents. James C. Ho, who was recently appointed by President Trump to the Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit, has written that citizenship “is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers.” Similarly, Walter Dellinger, who was assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration, told Congress in 1995 that legislation to nullify birthright citizenship was “unquestionably unconstitutional.”
Of course, Dellinger acknowledged, "Congress is free to propose, and the states to ratify, any amendment to the Constitution. Such naked power undeniably exists.” Yet the Constitution stands for certain enduring principles, as he said in testimony before the House. “For us, for our nation, the simple, objective, bright-line fact of birth on American soil is fundamental.”
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general. -
Press ReleaseNov 2024
Immigrants' Rights
ACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals New Information Regarding ICE’s Plans to Expand Immigration Detention in New JerseyACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals New Information Regarding ICE’s Plans to Expand Immigration Detention in New Jersey
NEW YORK – New documents obtained by the ACLU reveal that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is actively considering proposals to expand its immigration detention capacity across the state of New Jersey. The records, obtained as a result of a FOIA lawsuit filed by the ACLU in September 2024, disclose that ICE capacity could increase by approximately 600 beds in at least two facilities in New Jersey. The discovery comes as President-elect Donald Trump continues to double down on his campaign promise to implement the largest mass deportation and detention program in the nation’s history. For months, the ACLU of New Jersey and advocates have raised concerns with the Biden administration’s plans to expand detention in New Jersey, as well as in potentially sixteen other states identified by ICE. “Instead of closing abusive detention facilities once and for all, the Biden administration is simply paving the way for the incoming Trump administration to conduct mass detention and deportation of immigrant communities nationwide,” said Eunice Cho, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The Biden administration must instead work to close these facilities now.” These facilities under consideration include the Elizabeth Detention Center, located in Elizabeth, New Jersey and owned and operated by CoreCivic, Inc., and the Albert M. “Bo” Robinson Center (ARC) in Trenton, New Jersey, which was formerly owned by the GEO Group, Inc. Both facilities have significant records of poor conditions. Investigations of conditions at ARC exposed abusive conditions including “robbery, sexual assault, [and] menacing of the weak.” Meanwhile, the Elizabeth Detention Center has also come under fire for consistent medical neglect, cramped and unsanitary living quarters, and abusive treatment from guards. The ACLU obtained these documents as a result of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, which sought in part records responsive to a contract solicitation for additional ICE detention space in the Newark, New Jersey area. The solicitation, originally issued on June 26, 2024, sought “comprehensive detention services for adult male and female noncitizens” to “provide for general population, intake, segregated housing, and medical beds at a contractor-owned/contractor-operated detention facility or facilities.” The documents provided by ICE provide a limited glimpse of the detention proposals, as the production appears to include only the environmental impact statement portions of the proposals submitted by CoreCivic, Inc. and GEO Group, Inc. to ICE. It is unclear from the documents whether there are additional New Jersey facilities that responded to ICE’s solicitation, or how much it would cost taxpayers. For example, the GEO Group, Inc. claimed in litigation earlier this year that it has readied the Delaney Hall Facility, located in Newark, New Jersey, to conform with ICE operating requirements. “New Jersey has already taken steps to oppose immigrant detention by phasing out ICE contracts and closing county-run ICE jails. But as federal plans to expand detention in New Jersey continue, the need for protections grows by the day. That’s why it’s imperative that the Biden administration immediately halt any efforts to expand this abusive detention machine,” said ACLU-NJ campaign strategist Ami Kachalia. “We also urge the New Jersey Legislature to quickly pass the Immigrant Trust Act so that New Jersey is not complicit in separating families or depriving our residents of due process.” State officials and members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation have opposed the expansion of ICE detention in the state. Earlier this year, eight Representatives and Senator Cory Booker raised concern regarding the development of additional private ICE detention facilities in the state. Prior to that, the New Jersey state legislature passed AB 5207 in 2021, which prohibited state and local entities and private detention facilities from entering, renewing, or expanding immigration detention contracts. Both CoreCivic, Inc., and GEO Group, Inc. filed suit to stop enforcement of the law, which has been enjoined pending appeal. The ACLU of New Jersey filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of 28 community organizations in support of New Jersey's anti-detention law. The FOIA records are available here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/foia-documents-re-nj-ice-detention-rfi -
News & CommentaryNov 2024
Immigrants' Rights
How Biden Can Act Now to Limit Trump’s Mass Deportation AgendaHow Biden Can Act Now to Limit Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda
In our series on how Biden can use the lame duck period to secure civil liberties and civil rights, we examine how Biden can combat President-elect Trump’s plans to execute the largest mass deportation plan in U.S. history. -
Press ReleaseNov 2024
Immigrants' Rights
ACLU Statement on Trump’s Plan to Use Military to Mass Deport ImmigrantsACLU Statement on Trump’s Plan to Use Military to Mass Deport Immigrants
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump confirmed today that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to implement his plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. The following is a statement from Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union: “We are crystal clear that the next Trump administration will do everything in its power to make mass deportation raids a reality. “As we ready litigation and create firewalls for freedom across blue states, we must also sound the alarm that what’s on the horizon will change the very nature of American life for tens of millions of Americans. “President-elect Trump will soon have the full power of the U.S. government machinery at his disposal to target and displace immigrants at a scale our nation has never experienced."