Professor Rachel Rosenbloom Co-Authors Amicus Brief in Supreme Court Case on Birthright Citizenship

02.19.26 — Professor Rachel Rosenbloom, an expert in immigration and citizenship law, has joined with Professor Gerald L. Neuman of Harvard Law School and Professor Kristin Collins of the University of Michigan Law School to author an amicus brief supporting a class-action lawsuit that challenges the validity of President Trump's Executive Order No. 14,160. The three citizenship law scholars have filed the amicus brief in Trump v. Barbara (No. 25-365), a case the Court has taken up on certiorari before judgment from the First Circuit.

As in their earlier brief, the three scholars argue that the Executive Order — which purports to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the United States without a US citizen or lawful permanent resident parent — is unlawful on both constitutional and statutory grounds. The brief focuses specifically on the independent statutory basis for striking down the Order: that Congress codified broad territorial birthright citizenship in the Nationality Act of 1940 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and the Executive Order cannot override that statutory guarantee.

“Every lower court that has considered the validity of Executive Order 14,160 has struck it down,” says Rosenbloom.  “Executive Order 14,160 conflicts with the guarantee of birthright citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment — and as we argue in this brief, it also conflicts with the statutory guarantee of birthright citizenship contained in the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

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