Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California is proud to join the South Asian American Justice Collaborative (SAAJCO) and 48 partner organizations nationwide to defend the fundamental constitutional right of birthright citizenship. On February 25, 2026, the collaborative and its partners submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara, with oral argument scheduled for April 1, 2026.
Executive Order 14160 must be rejected. Birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, is a cornerstone of civil rights in the United States. Asian Americans have confronted efforts to deny our rights before; grounded in our history and strengthened by our communities, we are prepared to defend that constitutional guarantee before the Court on April 1.
About the Amicus Brief:
In the landmark Asian American case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court affirmed that the U.S.- born child of Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen by birth, setting a precedent that has protected millions for more than a century. In 2023, 2,411,401 Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders were U.S.-born children of foreign-born parents. In California alone, that is 673,901 individuals.
Executive Order 14160 threatens to unravel that hard-won constitutional protection by denying this right to children born in the United States to certain parents who are lawfully present on temporary visas. Our coalition’s brief emphasizes how the federal government’s reinterpretation of Wong Kim Ark ignores both the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the lived experiences of Asian American communities, who have long faced exclusion, violence and systemic discrimination. If upheld, Executive Order 14160 would revive and weaponize these same injustices against Asian American communities today.
