(C) Arizona Mirror
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Despite Supreme Court ruling, Arizona children aren’t affected by Trump’s citizenship order — yet [1]
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Date: 2025-06-27
The U.S. Supreme Court has given the Trump administration the go-ahead to begin stripping away the constitutional right to citizenship from hundreds of thousands of children with noncitizen parents in a month.
But babies born to immigrants in Arizona will continue to enjoy the protections of the U.S. Constitution beyond that deadline — at least for now. And immigrant rights advocates are working to both extend that legal shield for children in the entire country and make it permanent.
On Friday, in a 6-3 decision, the high court’s conservative majority ruled that nationwide injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” Over the past several months, three separate federal judges have blocked the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order barring children born in the U.S. after Feb. 19, 2025 from being granted citizenship if neither of their parents is at least a lawful permanent resident.
The high court determined that the injunctions only apply nationwide for 30 more days, and will thereafter be narrowed to cover just the states and groups that were part of the lawsuits, which includes Arizona.
AZ’s participation in lawsuit keeps children of immigrants safe
A day after the executive order gutting birthright citizenship was published, 22 Democratic-led states, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., filed two lawsuits against it in two separate district courts. Arizona, Washington, Illinois and Oregon filed their legal challenge in a Washington district court, and a Seattle judge quickly blocked Trump’s executive order from ever being enforced anywhere in the country, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional” because it attempts to erase Supreme Court precedent and ignore clear language in the 14th Amendment.
While that injunction may no longer protect children born in the 28 other states not involved in either lawsuit, babies born in the Grand Canyon State will still be considered citizens regardless of their parents’ legal status while the case continues. The quartet of Western states are aiming to void the executive order as unconstitutional because it conflicts with the 14th Amendment and nearly 130 years of established case law that has long accepted that children born on U.S. soil merit the protection of the U.S. Constitution, even if their parents aren’t citizens themselves.
Earlier this month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from the Trump administration, which is hoping to nullify the injunction in Arizona’s case. The three-judge appellate panel appeared skeptical of the government’s position that the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship provision was never meant to apply to the children of undocumented immigrants.
The Supreme Court justices stopped short of ruling on the constitutionality of the executive order, leaving that question up to the lower courts. It’s likely, however, that the legal battle will end up before the high court in the near future.
In a statement, Attorney General Kris Mayes said her office will keep working to prevent the order from ever being wielded against the thousands of Arizona children with noncitizen parents who are born in the state every year. In 2022, as many as 3,400 babies born in the state had parents who both lacked legal status.
“Our fight continues,” Mayes said. “We welcome the opportunity to keep making our case before the district courts for the relief necessary to protect Arizona and our co-plaintiffs. We cannot allow the Trump administration’s illegal actions, that would raise costs and undermine basic freedoms, to stand. We remain confident that his blatantly unconstitutional order will be reined in by the courts.”
Immigrant advocates look to other legal maneuvers for remaining states
With the protection of a nationwide injunction thrown out the window by the justices, legal organizations are angling instead for a class action lawsuit. Shortly after the high court issued its ruling, pro-immigrant groups CASA Inc. and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project filed a motion asking a federal judge in Maryland to certify a class of people who would be affected by Trump’s executive order, including both children and their parents. The duo, who are joined in the challenge by eight immigrant women who are pregnant or have recently given birth, launched their own lawsuit against the Trump administration earlier this year, and are now seeking to circumvent the limits erected by the U.S. Supreme Court via a class action lawsuit.
William Powell, senior counsel for the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection who helped file the lawsuit, said that class actions have much the same impact as nationwide injunctions.
“That relief will be just as effective, just as broad as the nationwide injunction that was previously put in place,” he said during a virtual news conference announcing the motion. “We don’t think this (executive) order should go into effect or will go into effect as to anyone, anywhere, ever. And it is our intention to continue to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Rulings issued in a class action lawsuit apply to everyone who is part of that class anywhere in the country, even if they aren’t named in the lawsuit. States can’t file class actions on behalf of their residents. If a federal judge certifies the class action request, any future decision to block Trump’s executive order would apply nationwide.
The groups also filed a motion requesting that the court issue either a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, which would freeze the executive order while the class action is considered, in a bid to prevent it from going into effect in a month when the deadline on the existing injunctions are up.
Powell said it’s critical that there is no period in which Trump’s executive order is allowed to be implemented, noting that the citizenship status of children born after Feb. 19 could be jeopardized. While the previous court orders keeping the Trump administration’s action at bay mean that, currently, children born after that date are considered citizens, it’s unclear if revoking the impact of the injunctions could claw that protection back from children in states that aren’t involved in lawsuits. Even the judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals appeared split on whether the executive order could be made retroactive during the hearing earlier this month.
“It’s somewhat unsettled what would happen,” Powell said. “It’s a really scary possibility, and that’s one of the reasons it’s just really important for us to make sure there are no gaps in this injunction, so that the government can’t play any games about when (the executive order) applied and when it didn’t.”
That concern is top of mind for Liza, whose child was born after Feb. 19 — the day that Trump’s executive order designates as the last day for babies with noncitizen parents to qualify for birthright citizenship. Liza, who is an anonymous party in the legal challenge, is in the country on a student visa and her husband is an asylum-seeker from Russia.
“We remain worried even now that, one day, the government could still try and take away our child’s citizenship,” Liza said. “I have worried a lot about whether the government could try to detain or deport our baby at some point. The executive order made us feel as though our baby is considered a nobody, and with this ruling, I know that so many other parents are feeling the same way.”
Juana, who is from Colombia and is pregnant, criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision as unjust and lamented that thousands of other women and their children are currently in legal limbo simply because, unlike her, they are not part of a lawsuit or they don’t live in a state that is protected by ongoing litigation.
“This isn’t the United States I believe in,” she said. “I want every mom in every state to feel what I’m feeling today: hope. Every child deserves what this country has promised, not just those who are lucky enough to live in the right place.”
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[1] Url:
https://azmirror.com/2025/06/27/despite-supreme-court-ruling-arizona-children-arent-affected-by-trumps-citizenship-order-yet/
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