Outten & Golden LLP and Towards Justice filed an amicus brief on behalf of 96 scholars in social science and related fields in a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.
The scholars have expertise in demography, economics, political science, public health, public policy, and sociology. Their brief argues that Trump’s order would make it harder for immigrants and their descendants to build better lives for themselves. This struggle would ultimately hold back the country’s overall prosperity and reintroduce a non-citizen “caste” that the U.S. hasn’t seen since the 1860s, they added.
“U.S. citizenship is a key driver of economic growth, educational attainment, and health, whereas the denial of legal status engenders legal, political, economic, and social exclusion to the detriment of immigrants and to the United States,” the brief states.
Trump’s order, which has been blocked by every federal district court that’s considered it, contradicts longstanding Supreme Court precedent on the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The case is before the Ninth Circuit, which is considering the Trump administration’s appeal of a preliminary injunction that blocks it from enforcing the order. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” when he issued a temporary restraining order on Jan. 23. On Feb. 6, he issued the preliminary injunction.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on May 15 on the Trump administration’s request to narrow Judge Coughenour’s injunction as well as two other nationwide injunctions issued by federal courts in Maryland and Massachusetts. If the high court sides with the administration, it would let the government deny citizenship to children born in the vast majority of the country.
The scholars are represented by O&G partner Ossai Miazad, counsel Moira Heiges-Goepfert, and associate Alina Pastor-Chermak, and Juno Turner and Rachel Dempsey of Towards Justice.
The case is State of Washington v. Trump, case number 25-807, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.