ACLU Files Federal Challenge to Trump Birthright Citizenship Executive Order

The lawsuit tests whether a second executive order can circumvent the constitutional and judicial boundaries that blocked the administration's first attempt on the same subject.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal court action on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, seeking a judicial ruling that President Trump's revised executive order restricting birthright citizenship is unlawful, according to reporting by The Hill. The ACLU's filing marks the organization's first direct legal challenge to the administration's second attempt at limiting citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents.

The legal context for this challenge is defined by prior Supreme Court action. The Court previously addressed the administration's original Day 1 executive order on birthright citizenship, and the ACLU's new filing argues that the revised order cannot operate outside the constraints established by that earlier judicial review, according to The Hill's report. The specific federal district court in which the complaint was filed, and the judge assigned to the case, were not identified in the available source material. That information would be contained in the court's public docket.

Birthright citizenship is grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, which states that all persons born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens. Legal challenges to executive orders restricting birthright citizenship have consistently argued that such orders exceed presidential authority because the right is constitutionally enumerated and cannot be modified without a constitutional amendment or definitive Supreme Court ruling reinterpreting the clause.

The White House has not issued a public statement responding to Tuesday's ACLU filing, as of the time of this report. The administration's legal position defending the revised order has not yet been filed in response to the ACLU complaint, meaning the government's specific constitutional arguments in this new case are not yet part of the public record.

What remains unknown includes the text of the revised executive order as filed in court exhibits, the precise legal theories the ACLU is advancing beyond the scope reported, and whether other organizations have filed or plan to file parallel challenges. The full complaint, once docketed, would be publicly available through the federal court's PACER system and would contain the complete factual and legal basis for the ACLU's claims.