This Thursday, 300+ AILA members from 34 chapters will meet with congressional delegations for AILA’s National Day of Action to elevate community voices & advocate for policies that treat people with dignity & deliver 21st-century solutions #AILANDA26 https://bit.ly/4tgefCs
TAKE ACTION today through AILA’s advocacy page and tell your congressional delegation that an independent immigration court is necessary.
Trump's ideological takeover of immigration courts should alarm every American. Courts exist to apply the law, not a political agenda. When judges are fired for ruling independently, due process dies. If the executive branch can corrupt one court system, it can corrupt others.
Part of this is a structural problem: immigration courts are controlled by the Attorney General & are permanently susceptible to political manipulation. Congress must fix this by establishing an Article I immigration court, independent and insulated from political pressure.
Trump officials monitor rulings, issue memos threatening discipline for decisions seen as too favorable to immigrants & require judges to report every bond grant to supervisors. A whistleblower said new hires told: "We fired almost 100 judges and we're watching you carefully."
Trump has fired 100+ immigration judges, replaced them w/ "deportation judges," ordered courts to stop granting bond & is pressuring judges to rule against immigrants. The result: immigration courts have become extensions of his mass deportation campaign.
As @aila.org Past President Jeremy McKinney wrote yesterday: "This executive order was constitutionally deficient the day it was signed." He put together a great analysis for further reading.
A decision is expected by June. If the EO is upheld, 200,000+ babies born in US each year could be denied citizenship & the citizenship of millions of Americans past, present and future could be called into question if the Court credits the government's underlying theory.
Justice Jackson pressed on the practical problem: "So, are we bringing pregnant women in for depositions?" Under the administration's framework, the government would need to assess parental immigration status at the moment of birth to determine whether a newborn is a citizen.
Justice Jackson raised the most basic question of all: the 14th's citizenship clause says nothing about parents. It grants citizenship to everyone born here & subject to US jurisdiction. The only people historically excluded are children of foreign diplomats.
When the administration's lawyer argued that modern immigration realities required a new reading of the amendment, Chief Justice Roberts replied: "It's a new world. It's the same Constitution."
Trump appointee Justice Barrett zeroed in on the executive order's core claim: that citizenship depends on a mix of where you're born and who your parents are. Her question was simple: if that's what the Constitution means, why doesn't it say that?
Justice Kavanaugh said Congress, when later codifying citizenship rules in 1940 & 1952, repeated the broad language of the 14th ("born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof") rather than adopting stricter language that limited citizenship.
Trump appointee Justice Kavanaugh pointed out that the same Congress that wrote the 14th Amendment also passed a separate law that explicitly limited citizenship based on parentage. They knew how to write that kind of restriction. They chose not to put it in the Constitution.
"Are children of Native Americans birthright citizens?" Solicitor General Sauer first said yes, then said he wasn't sure. Under the administration's own legal theory, its lawyers couldn't clearly answer a basic question about who would and wouldn't be a citizen.
Trump appointee Justice Gorsuch noted that the justices who opposed broad birthright citizenship in the landmark 1898 case that settled this question never went as far as Trump is going today. Then he asked a question that stopped the government's lawyer cold:
Yesterday at SCOTUS, justices from across the ideological spectrum (including Trump appointees) expressed deep skepticism about the administration's effort to end birthright citizenship. Here's what they said.
The legal consensus against this order is overwhelming, and the human cost is real. It contradicts the Constitution, federal law, and more than a century of settled practice. The Supreme Court should say so—clearly and unequivocally.
Birthright citizenship isn’t a loophole. It’s rooted in the 14th Amendment and recognizes that children born here are part of our communities, able to fully participate in American life. Ending it would create a permanent underclass of stateless children with nowhere to go.
Ending birthright citizenship would rewrite a 160-year constitutional rule, creating case-by-case fights over who counts as a citizen. Passports, Social Security, state benefits & court systems would be thrown into chaos. That is unworkable.
Today, the Supreme Court hears a case challenging Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. if their parents lack permanent legal status. The stakes are enormous – more than 250,000 children born here every year.
No law enforcement agency should be funded without being required to follow the Constitution and the law. Congress must deliver binding protections, real transparency, and meaningful oversight.
This is staggering. DOJ concedes it relied on a memo that never authorized immigration court arrests yet defended the practice in court for months. Meanwhile, people were arrested and deported while trying to obey court orders. That’s a betrayal of due process and professional ethics.
As a result of the hard work of the American Immigration Council and their litigation partners, and the courage of the plaintiffs in this case, we have all secured a meaningful victory for justice and the rule of law. @immcouncil.org
Creating an independent immigration court is a critical first step to protecting due process, restoring integrity, and ensuring decisions worthy of the public’s trust.
By any measure, the Trump Administration is failing the American people and undermining the national interest in every area of immigration. #SOTU
Congress should recognize what the American people already have: this approach is failing. It is Congress’s responsibility — and constitutional obligation — to reassert oversight, restore guardrails, and ensure that immigration policy reflects both the rule of law and our national interests.
NEW: AILA is launching A Better Way on Immigration, a series of policy briefs evaluating the first year of the Trump Administration’s policies, showing the impact on Americans and presenting a forward-looking vision for immigration policy. https://bit.ly/4tItZOW
Trump's immigration policy is undermining the national interest. A better path forward must 1) keep our communities safe, 2) end unlawful immigration, 3) provide legal immigration pathways, 4) ensure fairness & due process, 5) protect people who are fleeing persecution #SOTU
Since October, 400+ federal judges — including 44 Trump picks — have ruled 4,421+ times that ICE’s detentions are illegal. Trump is ignoring those rulings while also firing 100+ immigration judges, squeezing due process for immigrants. #SOTU