Casa v. Trump (2025)

On Inauguration Day, President Trump signed an Executive Order attempting to reinterpret the 14th Amendment to deny birthright citizenship to children born to immigrant parents unless at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. Anticipating this move, we responded immediately. Our litigation not only secured protection for our plaintiffs, but also shaped a national legal strategy to preserve birthright citizenship.

We filed a lawsuit on January 21 on behalf of five pregnant mothers and hundreds of thousands of members of two immigrant-rights organizations—CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP). The plaintiffs include pregnant mothers with pending asylum claims, pregnant mothers in the U.S. on student visas, pregnant mothers with temporary protected status, and pregnant mothers who are undocumented.

Within two weeks of filing the lawsuit, a federal district judge in Maryland granted a universal injunction against the Executive Order, protecting not just the plaintiffs, but everyone across the nation who would have been impacted. The judge explained that the Executive Order conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent, and runs counter to the country’s history of recognizing citizenship by birth.

The Trump Administration responded by appealing our preliminary injunction and two others granted to groups of state plaintiffs, then sought an immediate stay of the universal application of the injunctions pending appeal. When the Administration lost its stay motions in the district courts and courts of appeals, it sought emergency Supreme Court review.

Six weeks after Supreme Court Director Kelsi Corkran argued the case, the Supreme Court ruled that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” The Court granted a partial stay of the existing universal injunctions, limiting them to what is “necessary to provide complete relief” to the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of the Executive Order, which had been found unconstitutional in the lower courts. It also did not stay the injunction barring the Executive Order from being applied to the plaintiffs in our case: individual named pregnant mothers (some of whom had given birth) and members of CASA and ASAP. Their children remained protected against the Executive Order.

To ensure protection for all U.S.-born children and not just those who had the ability to file a lawsuit, within two hours of the Supreme Court decision, we filed an amended class-action complaint and a motion seeking an immediate injunction for all babies born or who will be born in the United States to whom the Executive Order would otherwise apply. On August 7, the district court granted the relief requested, certifying a nationwide class of born and to-be-born babies that would have been denied citizenship under the Executive Order and enjoining the government from enforcing it. We look forward to continuing to protect the cherished right to citizenship that the Constitution provides.