Supreme Court Decision Affirms Citizenship is a Birthright of all Americans

WASHINGTON — Today, Janet Murguía, President and CEO of UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, issued the following statement in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Barbara: 

“Today, the United States Supreme Court affirmed what all of us already knew to be true: that the principles at the core of the 14th Amendment that provide for birthright citizenship cannot be undone by an executive order, and as I stated previously, no presidential pen can outweigh the heart of our constitution. For more than 150 years, birthright citizenship has been viewed as settled law. A decision to change that clear understanding would have created unprecedented chaos and undermined our nation’s history of the rule of law. The Constitution provides every American citizen with rights that no president, through political whims or bigotry, should be able to dismantle or deny to anyone born in this nation.     

“As Chief Justice John Roberts concluded, ‘Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to “every free-born person in this land.” We keep that promise today.’ 

“UnidosUS is proud to stand with our partners and allies against this unjust and unlawful action and threat to millions of American citizens. This was an unnecessary, unwarranted and shameful act that was rightly rejected by the Court.” 

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