Federal Court Orders Trump Administration to Remedy Damage Caused by Family Separation Settlement Breach  

As she witnesses the news of ICE detaining thousands of children, child development scholar Rümeysa Öztürk reflects on how detention and deportation negatively impact children for a lifetime, in relation to her own experiences of being detained.

President Donald Trump will likely celebrate a false sense of success in his State of the Union address. There’s strength in this union, but not the way the president thinks.

Courts have uniformly blocked President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order; Supreme Court arguments set for April 1 WASHINGTON — Legal organizations representing a class of all babies who would be subject to President Trump’s harmful, unconstitutional, and unlawful executive order restricting birthright citizenship filed their Supreme Court merits brief today outlining the myriad reasons the court should strike down the order once and for all. The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case, Trump v. Barbara, on April 1. The Barbara case is a nationwide class action brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Hampshire, ACLU of Maine, ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund. Courts have repeatedly blocked the Trump administration from implementing the executive order, finding it violates the Constitution, over a century of Supreme Court precedent, and a longstanding federal statute. Because of the Constitution’s birthright citizenship guarantee and federal laws, nearly every child born on U.S. soil is automatically a U.S. citizen, regardless of their parents’ status, wealth, or origin. In their brief filed today, the groups write that, “For generations, all three branches of the U.S. government and the American people have understood, applied, and relied on that constitutional bedrock — embodying our American values of equality and opportunity and contributing to the thriving of our Nation.” Indeed, it has been a fixture of American identity since the nation’s founding and was firmly enshrined in the 14th Amendment. The Trump administration, the brief notes, “is asking for nothing less than a remaking of our Nation’s constitutional foundations.” Read the full brief here. The following is comment from the co-counsel team: “Citizenship by birth and not parentage is one of the most cherished foundation stones in the U.S. Constitution. It has been settled by constitutional amendment since 1868 and by Supreme Court precedent since 1898,” said ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who will argue the case before the Supreme Court. “The framers of the 14th Amendment were specifically acting to prevent government officials from interfering with native-born Americans' citizenship and they would be dismayed by what the president is trying to do today.” “We are proud to stand with this coalition before the Supreme Court to quell the administration’s attempt to resurrect a racialized notion of who gets to be an American citizen,” said Ashley Burrell, senior counsel at LDF. “Birthright citizenship was originally established in our Constitution to finally ensure citizenship for all, including Black people who were forced to endure hundreds of years of bondage.  The 14th Amendment makes it clear that all children born in this country are entitled to the rights and protections of American citizenship, and we will continue fighting to ensure this is not undermined.” “Birthright citizenship is what makes every child born here unequivocally American,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus. “Without it, ordinary milestones — getting a Social Security number, a passport, or access to federal programs — become obstacles for the thousands of children who could be born into legal limbo from day one. Asian Americans have fought for this constitutional promise before and won. The Asian Law Caucus is proud to fight for it again before the Supreme Court.” “Today, DDF and our partners filed a Supreme Court brief defending a basic American principle: birthright citizenship,” said Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund. “Trump’s executive order is flatly unconstitutional, directly contradicts Supreme Court precedent, and conflicts with federal law, and our brief makes that clear. We look forward to making this argument before the court and are confident they will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century.” “We are continuing to fight this cruel executive order to ensure that every child born in the United States has their right to citizenship protected instead of being relegated to a permanent, multigenerational subclass of people born in the U.S. but who are denied full rights,” said SangYeob Kim, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the ACLU of New Hampshire. “The Trump administration is attempting to destroy our shared values of freedom, opportunity, and dignity for all by treating millions of American babies as second-class citizens. That's unconstitutional, unlawful, and just plain wrong. The Supreme Court should throw out the administration's divisive, degrading, and clearly unconstitutional executive order and reaffirm the principle of birthright citizenship — a bedrock right in the United States and a cornerstone of our democracy,” said Jessie Rossman, legal director for the ACLU of Massachusetts. “The 14th Amendment is clear: babies born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens,” said Zach Heiden, chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine. “Today’s brief demonstrates that birthright citizenship is a longstanding American principle that all three branches of government have recognized for nearly two centuries. We hope the Supreme Court will uphold the plain language of the Constitution and stop the president’s attempt to upend one of our nation’s core tenets.” The brief is here.  

MINNEAPOLIS — Today, “Border Czar” Tom Homan announced that the administration is ending its domestic federal deployment – Operation Metro Surge – in Minnesota. This deployment resulted in shootings, deaths, and innumerable constitutional rights violations. Masked federal agents in military gear have ignored basic human rights in their enforcement activity against Minnesotans, especially targeting Somali and Latino communities. “For the past two months, Minneapolis and St. Paul have felt like cities under siege,” said Deepinder Mayell, Executive Director of the ACLU of Minnesota. “While today’s announcement by Tom Homan is welcomed, federal agents continue to use tactics and practices that violate constitutional rights. There is no evidence that these practices have changed. What we’ve seen in Minnesota represents a significant escalation in the administration's attack on free speech, due process, and equal protection rights. Now is not the time for Minnesotans to rest. The ACLU of Minnesota will continue working in the courts, the legislature, and in our communities to work to rebuild what Operation Metro Surge tried to destroy.” There are limited details on how the supposed drawdown will occur and on what timeline. The ACLU of Minnesota and the ACLU will continue our lawsuits and work to hold law enforcement accountable for their abuses. Similar to other cities and states, after Operation Metro Surge concludes, federal agents will remain in some capacity, and more federal agents could return at any time. We will continue to monitor reports of racial profiling, physical abuse, targeting of children and families, and illegal detention from communities around the nation. “This ‘operation’ involved violence, misconduct, and constitutional violations at every turn, and the Minnesota community made the world know the abuses occurring in their neighborhoods,” said Naureen Shah, Director of Government Affairs for the ACLU’s Equality Division. “The administration now says it’s leaving, a sign that it feels the public’s outrage, but we know better than to take hollow words as truth. We will continue fighting in court over their attacks on our rights and safety, but let’s be clear: Congress has a mandate to rein in these federal agencies and ensure that none of these violations happen again in Minneapolis or anywhere else.” In Hussen v. Noem, Minnesotans are challenging the administration's policy of racially profiling, unlawfully seizing, and unlawfully arresting people without a warrant and without probable cause. In Tincher v. Noem, Minnesotans are challenging the administration’s policy and practice of retaliation and excessive use of force against people observing, recording, and protesting immigration enforcement activity.