Two national immigrants’ rights organizations filed a federal class-action lawsuit on Friday seeking to block President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order ending birthright citizenship. The filing comes just hours after the US Supreme Court issued a decision limiting the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions against federal policies, while leaving open the door for class-wide relief.
The plaintiffs, CASA Inc. and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), along with a group of expectant and recent mothers, amended their lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Maryland to seek class certification on behalf of all children born in the US on or after February 19, 2025, whose parents are neither US citizens nor lawful permanent residents. Such individuals were declared ineligible for citizenship under the president’s executive order.
The plaintiffs argued that Trump’s order is a flagrant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, longstanding Supreme Court precedent, and federal statute (8 USC § 1401), all of which guarantee birthright citizenship to children born on US soil, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Citing the landmark 1898 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the complaint argues that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to virtually all individuals born in the US, with only narrow exceptions (such as children of foreign diplomats or enemy occupiers). Congress later codified this guarantee in federal law.
“Without a class-wide injunction, Defendants will deny thousands of babies in the putative class their constitutional and statutory right to United States citizenship,” the plaintiffs said in their emergency motion for a temporary restraining order.
The amended complaint follows the Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling earlier on Friday that curtailed the power of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions that block federal policy. Writing for the majority in Trump v. CASA, Inc., Justice Amy Coney Barrett emphasized that such relief typically must be limited to the named plaintiffs, unless pursued through lawful class actions.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented strongly, warning that limiting judicial remedies would make “constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit.”
Recognizing that shift, the plaintiffs are now asking the Maryland federal court to grant emergency class-wide injunctive relief, a move the Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged as a permissible avenue for broader protection.
The executive order, signed by Trump on January 20, seeks to deny citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants or individuals with only temporary legal status. With thousands of children being born each week to noncitizen parents, the plaintiffs argue that only class-wide relief can prevent the government from denying their constitutional rights.
