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Citizens United Backs President Trump In Legal Filing Rejecting Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Aliens

On Friday, January 31, 2025, Citizens United, together with several other conservative organizations, urged the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington to deny a preliminary injunction in a challenge to President Trump’s executive order denying so-called birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. In 27-page amicus curiae (friend of the court brief) filed in Washington , et al. v. Donald J. Trump, et al., Citizens United and its co-amici make three arguments. First, President Trump should be dismissed from the action on Separation of Power grounds: “This effort to name the President of the United States as the lead defendant . . . may generate good press and be good politics for the Attorneys General of the Plaintiff States, but they should know better, as this court’s entry of an injunction against the President of the United States would violate the Separation of Powers.”  Second, the Plaintiff States are not entitled to assert the interests of third-party non-citizens against the federal government in challenging the Executive Order.  And third, on the merits, birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens or temporary visitors to the United States is unsupported by the ”text, context, or history of the Citizenship Clause” of the 14th Amendment.

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