ACLU Files to Block Trump Birthright Citizenship Orders in Federal Court
The legal challenge tests whether a second round of executive orders can survive judicial scrutiny after the Supreme Court rejected a broader version of the same policy on June 30, 2026.
The American Civil Liberties Union and allied advocacy groups filed a motion in federal court on Tuesday, August 5, 2026, asking a judge to block enforcement of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that seek to restrict birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants in the United States. The filing was made in the U.S. District Court, according to reporting by The Guardian citing the Tuesday court filing directly.
The groups argued in their filing that the new executive orders constitute an improper attempt to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court's June 30, 2026, ruling, which rejected a broader version of the administration's earlier effort to limit automatic citizenship. The specific docket number and judge assigned to the case were not identified in the source material reviewed for this report. The full text of the Tuesday filing would confirm the precise constitutional and statutory arguments advanced by the ACLU.
Trump's original executive order on birthright citizenship, issued at the start of his second term, sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country without legal status, relying on a reinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause. The Supreme Court's June 30 decision limited enforcement of that first order, though the Court's full reasoning as it applies to the revised orders remains subject to ongoing litigation. The text of the revised executive orders, available through the Federal Register, would specify which categories of individuals the administration now seeks to exclude.
The ACLU has been a named party in multiple prior birthright citizenship cases during the Trump administration's second term. The organization's standing, the precise injunctive relief requested, and the government's response deadline are details that would appear in the publicly available court docket for the U.S. District Court where the filing was submitted. What remains unknown is which federal district court received the new filing and how quickly the assigned judge will schedule a hearing on the preliminary injunction request.