⮚ The Modern Fight For the Full Promise of the 14th Amendment
In 2025, “A federal judge in Maryland has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship.
“U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman heard arguments Wednesday over a request by five pregnant undocumented women to block Trump's Day-1 executive order seeking to redefine the meaning of the 14th Amendment to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from birthright citizenship.
“‘The denial of the precious right to citizenship will cause irreparable harm,’ Judge Boardman said in handing down her order. ‘It has been said the right to U.S. citizenship is a right no less precious than life or liberty. If the court does not enjoin enforcement of the executive order, children subject to the order will be denied the rights and benefits of U.S. citizenship and their parents will face instability. A nationwide injunction is appropriate and necessary because it concerns citizenship.’
“The ruling comes two weeks after a federal judge in Seattle criticized the Department of Justice for attempting to defend what he called a "blatantly unconstitutional" order and issued a temporary restraining order.
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“Lawyers for the Department of Justice have claimed that Trump's executive order attempts to resolve ‘prior misimpressions’ of the 14th Amendment, arguing that birthright citizenship creates a ‘perverse incentive for illegal immigration.’ If permitted, Trump's executive order would preclude U.S. citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants or immigrants whose presence in the United States is lawful but temporary.
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“With Trump vowing to appeal a ruling that finds his executive order unconstitutional, [this recent and not temporary] preliminary injunction could be his first opportunity to appeal to a higher court.
“Members of the Trump administration spent months crafting this executive order with the understanding that it would inevitably be challenged and potentially blocked by lower courts, according to sources familiar with their planning.
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“Monica -- a medical doctor from Venezuela with temporary protected status who joined the lawsuit under a pseudonym -- said she joined the suit because she fears her future child will become stateless, with her home country facing an ongoing humanitarian, political and economic crisis.
“‘I'm 12 weeks pregnant. I should be worried about the health of my child. I should be thinking about that primarily, and instead my husband and I are stressed, we're anxious and we're depressed about the reality that my child may not be able to become a U.S. citizen,’ she said.” (Judge issues nationwide injunction blocking Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, ABC News, February 5, 2025)
In 2018, when President Donald Trump began making more serious claims to revoke birthright citizenship, Democracy Now interviewed Martha Jones, author of “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America”, the Society of Black Alumni presidential professor and professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, and co-president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.
The interviewer, Juan González, began stating how “Civil rights groups, legal experts and politicians on both sides of the aisle are blasting Trump for his comments, including the false claim that the U.S. is the only country with birthright laws. In fact, at least 30 other countries have similar laws, including Canada, Mexico and Cuba…Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he would introduce a bill to support Trump’s citizenship plan. But House [now former] Speaker Paul Ryan criticized Trump’s comments while speaking to Kentucky radio station WVLK.
[At-the-time] SPEAKER PAUL RYAN [stated in 2018:] ‘You obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. As a conservative, I’m a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution. And I think, in this case, the 14th Amendment is pretty clear.’” (How African Americans Fought For & Won Birthright Citizenship 150 Years Before Trump Tried to End It, Transcript of Interview by Democracy Now, October 31, 2018)
Martha’s book details how “Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and Black Laws threatened to deport the formerly enslaved born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses. They faced formidable opposition, most notoriously from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott.
“Still, Martha S. Jones explains, no single case defined their status. The formerly enslaved studied law, secured allies, and conducted themselves like citizens, establishing their status through local, everyday claims. All along they argued that birth guaranteed their rights. With fresh archival sources and an ambitious reframing of constitutional law-making before the Civil War, Jones shows how the 14th Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle, and Black Americans’ aspirations were realized.” (Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America, Zinn Education Project, n.d.)
⮚ The History of the 14th Amendment: How and Why Black People Were Finally Guaranteed Citizenship
As Martha S. Jones writes in a July 10, 2018 TIME article, “When the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868 — [just 150 years ago in 2018] — it closed the door on schemes that aimed to make the U.S. a white man’s country. It was a victory that was a long time coming. The ratification of the 14th Amendment in July 1868 transformed national belonging, and made African Americans, and indeed all those born on U.S. soil, citizens. Isaiah Wears, a veteran of the abolitionist movement, explained shortly after its passage the rights that he and other African Americans expected to thus enjoy: not only the right to vote and to select representatives, but also ‘the right of residence….’
“The right of residence — to remain unmolested in the territory of the nation — was urgent in Wears’ view. How was it that a right that today many Americans take for granted was so urgently sought in 1868? Black Americans had lived for nearly half a century in a legal limbo. No law defined the rights of people who were no longer slaves. Freedom did not guarantee rights, nor it did not make them citizens. Caught in a debate over their status, they lived under the threat of colonization, a scheme that sought to remove them from the nation.”
Martha S. Jones’ TIME article and interview do such an in-depth job explaining, in detail as I venture to do in my articles, that I am going to end this article here and link her incredible article for further reading. Click the read more button underneath the image to read her full article. See list of sources for further and recommended reading.
We urge all our readers to pay attention this battle over birthright citizenship as it was so hard fought for by our ancestors.
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