Baltimore immigrant advocates welcome Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. Barbara kept in place the constitutional rule that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth. Baltimore immigrant advocates reacted with relief. The ruling eased months of fear for pregnant mothers and families worried an executive order could threaten citizenship for U.S.-born children.

For We Are CASA, the East Baltimore-based immigrant-rights group, the ruling was a response to Executive Order No. 14160, signed by Donald Trump on January 20, 2025. The court’s opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, tied its holding to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and historical precedent, including English common law and the Supreme Court’s 1898 Wong Kim Ark decision. The justices rejected the administration’s effort to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents without permanent legal status.

In Baltimore, 9.1% of residents were born outside the United States. Vera Institute data show one in four Baltimore children has at least one immigrant parent, and the vast majority of those children were born in the United States.

For George Escobar, We Are CASA’s executive director, the outcome mattered most for pregnant mothers and families who had been fielding questions about whether a child born in the United States could lose citizenship status. CASA has been fighting the Trump order for more than a year, including a lawsuit that led U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Greenbelt to issue a nationwide injunction on February 5, 2025 after CASA, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and five pregnant mothers sued.

It came just days after the Supreme Court allowed the administration’s challenge to Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians to move forward. Maryland has about 921,900 immigrants, or 15% of the state population.