The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have asked a federal judge to block President Donald Trump's latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, arguing that two executive orders signed last week seek to circumvent a June Supreme Court ruling that struck down his previous effort.
The new orders, signed August 6, target narrower categories of U.S.-born children. One would deny citizenship to children whose parents are classified as "alien enemies," work for foreign governments or engage in citizenship-related fraud. The other targets so-called "birth tourism," in which foreign nationals travel to the United States to give birth.
In a Tuesday filing in federal court in New Hampshire, the groups asked a judge to clarify that the orders cannot affect children protected by an existing injunction. "Despite the Supreme Court's clear direction, the President continues to claim for himself the power to identify categories of children whose citizenship he intends to deny," the filing said, according to Reuters.
The legal challenge follows the Supreme Court's June 30 decision in Trump v. Barbara, which struck down Trump's 2025 executive order seeking to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. whose parents were undocumented or lacked permanent legal status. In its 6-3 ruling, the court found the order violated the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship.
The ACLU, along with several partner organizations, brought that case on behalf of children who would have been denied citizenship under Trump's original order. Following the ruling, ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang said the decision established that "a president cannot change the Constitution by executive fiat."
The organization has maintained the same position in response to Trump's new orders. Last week, Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said that "no additional executive order can change the meaning of the Constitution" and predicted that any new attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship would "meet the same fate as the last one."
A White House spokesperson told Reuters that the administration has "always followed court orders" and said the latest actions are consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling. The ACLU argues that the new orders face the same constitutional barrier as Trump's previous attempt.
"President Trump may not like the fact that birthright citizenship is a constitutional right," Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said Tuesday. "That is really beside the point."
The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration levels, estimated in 2020 that between 20,000 and 26,000 women enter the U.S. annually for birth tourism. By comparison, 3.61 million births were recorded nationwide in 2025.
