Amicus Brief in State of Washington, et al. v. Trump, et al.

The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship to all U.S.-born children “within the dominion of the United States,” regardless of their parents’ citizenship status. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 688 (1898). Enshrining birthright citizenship in the Constitution was central to re-dedicating the country to freedom and equality in the wake of the Civil War. Adopted in an “effort to purge the United States of the legacy of slavery,” birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment “remains an eloquent statement about the nature of American society,” a powerful force for full inclusion of the children of immigrants in the polity, “and a repudiation of a long history of racism.” Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution 70-71 (2019).

Ending birthright citizenship would deprive millions of Americans of their foundational right to a representative government and would fundamentally alter and degrade the democratic equality that all citizens enjoy.

Read the full amicus brief