ACLU Challenges Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order in Court After Supreme Court Ruling

In a bold move that’s stirring the pot, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a coalition of legal groups filed a class-action lawsuit in New Hampshire federal court on Friday, challenging President Donald Trump’s January executive order redefining birthright citizenship. This legal jab comes just hours after the Supreme Court handed Trump a win, ruling 6-3 that lower courts can only issue nationwide injunctions in rare cases, potentially paving the way for the order to take effect in parts of the country.

The lawsuit, representing U.S.-born children and their parents, argues that Trump’s order violates the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. The policy denies citizenship to kids whose mothers are undocumented or temporarily in the U.S., and whose fathers aren’t citizens or legal permanent residents. The ACLU calls this a direct attack on America’s core promise of equality, warning it could create a ‘multigenerational subclass’ of stateless children.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, clarified that the Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t touch the legality of Trump’s order but focused on limiting the scope of universal injunctions. Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent urged swift class-action suits to counter the policy’s ‘blatantly unlawful’ impact. The ACLU, backed by groups like the Legal Defense Fund and Asian Law Caucus, is stepping up, citing cases like a Honduran mother in New Hampshire fearing her U.S.-born child will be denied citizenship.

This isn’t the first rodeo for the ACLU, which filed a similar suit in January 2025, now pending in the 1st Circuit. The new lawsuit leans on the 1898 Wong Kim Ark decision, which cemented birthright citizenship for children of noncitizens. As the legal battle heats up, the administration defends the order as a step to ‘secure our borders,’ while critics argue it’s a constitutional overreach that betrays American values.