Public Counsel Statement on Supreme Court Decision Upholding Birthright Citizenship

Public Counsel commends the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold birthright citizenship — a ruling that protects the futures of more than 200,000 children born on American soil each year.

This decision affirms one of the most fundamental principles of our nation’s legacy: that every child — no matter their parents’ race or background — born in the United States is an American citizen. Written into the Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War, that promise was rooted in this country’s shameful history of denying citizenship to Black people and their children. It reflects our country’s long and difficult journey toward reconciling its past — a constitutional promise that belonging in America is determined by the soil beneath your feet, not the status of your parents.

When Frederick Douglass asked, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” he challenged a nation celebrating freedom while excluding enslaved people from its promise. More than 170 years later, in the very week our country prepares to celebrate its independence, immigrant families were forced to wonder whether that promise would be denied to their children.

Today, the Court has given them an answer: the Fourth of July belongs to them too. Their children are Americans. And no arbitrary stroke of the presidential pen can change that.

We celebrate this ruling for what it protects today and what it promises tomorrow: that prosperity and opportunity in America belong to every child, every family, every generation. But today’s ruling does not mark the end of the road. This administration’s attack on birthright citizenship is one of the many ongoing assaults on immigrant families. Public Counsel remains committed to standing with the families we serve, in the courtroom and beyond, until the promise of this country’s dream is a lived reality for everyone.