‘American-Born Children are American Children’: Supporters Rally Outside Supreme Court In Defense of Birthright Citizenship

Hundreds rallied outside the Supreme Court this week, where the Trump administration demanded that justices nullify the kinds of the lower court orders that have blocked its unconstitutional and outrageous effort to terminate birthright citizenship – a protection explicitly guaranteed in the 14th Amendment – via executive order. Outside the courtroom, rally attendees held signs that affirmed the 160-year-old constitutional principle that everyone born in America is an American, plain and simple. 

“Born here? You’re a citizen, period,” “Defend the Constitution,” and “American-born children are American children” were just a number of signs seen outside the Supreme Court. We’ve collected some posts from throughout the day below.

“Hundreds are gathered at the SCOTUS because this moment matters. It is about our children’s rights. It is about their future. Ending birthright citizenship would turn back the clock on civil rights and violate our nation’s Constitutional promises.

We will not let that happen. Not today. Not ever.”

“RIGHT NOW:

A crowd of advocates has gathered outside #SCOTUS as the court hears oral arguments on #BirthrightCitizenship.”

“BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP 

IS A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT

Full stop.”

“NOW: @fwd.us is joining @casaforall.bsky.social and organizations from across the country to urge the Supreme Court to defend birthright citizenship — a Constitutional foundation — as the justices hear arguments regarding the executive order attempting to end it.”

As FWD.us noted in a policy brief, the matter at hand on Thursday was not the legality of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional executive order itself — even the administration seems to know it’ll likely lose on this issue, legal experts say – but rather whether lower courts have the power to temporarily block the unconstitutional order from going into effect nationwide. 

Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of Stephen Miller and the Trump administration and nullify the lower court rulings, it could wreak havoc across the nation. Some U.S.-born infants could be denied their rightful citizenship based entirely on the state of birth, forcing “every affected newborn to sue individually while the Executive enforces its rewrite of 150 years of settled law,” according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“The Constitution and over a century of legal precedent are crystal clear,” FWD.us posted at Bluesky. “The Supreme Court must affirm the constitutional rights guaranteed in the 14th Amendment and not allow the Trump administration to move this unconstitutional effort forward.”

Ahead of Thursday’s rally, the great-grandson of the San Francisco-born Chinese American man whose landmark 1898 Supreme Court case helped guarantee birthright citizenship, spoke out in defense of his ancestor’s legacy. While 75-year-old Norman Wong knew that his great-grandfather had been at the center of the lawsuit that enshrined birthright citizenship, he realized he would have his own battle following Trump’s promises to undo this constitutional principle. 

“For the first time since he was born, Wong realized that what his great-grandfather, Wong Kim Ark, had once fought to gain, he might have to fight to keep,” Documented reported.

“Attacks on the constitutional rights my predecessor fought for are only meant to divide us further in our already fractured world,” Wong told Documented. “I feel privileged to be working with people who care deeply about this issue. They could have done this without me, probably, but I feel I can do my part. I believe in what I’m doing, and I think it’s right.”

We’ll know by the end of June how the Supreme Court rules. But anyone listening closely understood that the words and arguments uttered by the Solicitor General came right from the mouth of Stephen Miller, who, as NBC News recently noted, seems to be the most powerful person in the White House aside from Trump himself. “Not Vice President JD Vance. Not chief of staff Susie Wiles. Not anyone else.” And, we can’t help but wonder what Usha Vance has to say about this debate.