ACLU Legal Director Cecillia Wang to Present Arguments at the Supreme Court in Birthright Citizenship Case 

Landmark case protects babies born on U.S. soil who would be denied citizenship under President Trump’s unconstitutional executive order

WASHINGTON — Heading into the new year, immigrants’ rights and civil rights advocates are busy preparing for Supreme Court arguments, expected in the spring, in a case challenging President Trump’s unprecedented birthright citizenship executive order that seeks to deny U.S. citizenship to many babies born in the United States. Cecillia Wang, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and a second-generation American, will argue this landmark case, Trump v. Barbara, at the Supreme Court.

An ACLU lawyer for more than two decades, Wang has played a central role in shaping the organization’s civil rights and constitutional litigation. Under her leadership during the first Trump administration, the ACLU challenged the Muslim ban, family separation policy, illegal funding of border wall projects Congress had rejected, and attempts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Earlier in her career, she directed the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, which won cases involving immigration detention, racial profiling, and discriminatory state and federal immigration laws. As a second-generation American, her own citizenship was made possible by the repeal of racially discriminatory immigration laws through the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and by the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee. Those reforms grew directly out of the anti-slavery and civil rights movements and expanded who has citizenship and belonging in the United States.

“This is the case of the century — the stakes are unfathomably high. Can a president of the United States unilaterally end birthright citizenship by executive order — overriding more than 150 years of settled constitutional law, and redefining who is recognized as American at birth? Absolutely not,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “Cecillia Wang is one of the country’s great litigators, which is why she’s the ACLU’s top lawyer. She has decades of experience fighting government overreach, including two trial victories against Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s racial profiling and contempt of court. Now, she’s up against a more formidable adversary as this case is a linchpin to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s agenda. Our clients are in the best possible hands with Cecillia Wang and this incredible co-counsel team presenting arguments — they will do all it takes to make sure birthright citizenship remains a cornerstone of our democracy.”

The Barbara case is a nationwide class action brought by the national ACLU, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, the Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund on behalf of babies who would be subject to the executive order.

This summer, the federal court in the Barbara case granted a preliminary injunction that protects birthright citizenship for all children born on U.S. soil, prompting the Trump administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

Courts have uniformly rejected President Trump’s attempts to strip away a core constitutional protection and blocked his birthright citizenship executive order.

The groups will argue that the administration’s assault on birthright citizenship — the legal principle guaranteed by the 14th Amendment that every baby born in the United States is a U.S. citizen — flouts the Constitution’s dictates, longstanding Supreme Court precedent, a statute passed by Congress, and fundamental American values.