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Rights and Liberties

The high court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a landmark case that will determine whether President Donald Trump can essentially redefine who is considered an American.

Protecting Birthright Citizenship

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<a href="https://19thnews.org/author/candice-norwood">Candice Norwood</a> | <a href="https://19thnews.org">The 19th</a> April 1, 2026
<a href="https://19thnews.org/2026/04/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-oral-arguments?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=19th-republishing&utm_content=/2026/04/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-oral-arguments">This story</a> was originally published by<a href="https://19thnews.org/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=19th-republishing&utm_content=/2026/04/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-oral-arguments">The 19th</a>. 
Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical on Wednesday of the Trump administration’s argument that the 14th Amendment does not extend birthright citizenship to the children of noncitizen parents.&nbsp;
The high court heard oral arguments on April 1 in Trump v. Barbara, a landmark case that will determine whether President Donald Trump can essentially redefine who is considered an American by restricting which babies born on U.S. soil have the right to citizenship.
The bulk of the Trump administration’s argument centered on whether the children of noncitizen or temporary-status immigrants have an allegiance to the United States, and whether they can claim a “permanent domicile and residence” inside the country.
Multiple justices raised questions about how the administration defines “domicile” and the logistics of how that definition might be applied if the executive order were to go into effect. Notably, three of the six justices who make up the court’s conservative majority — Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Amy Coney Barrett — appeared unmoved.
“The examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky,” Roberts said. Barrett, for her part, questioned how the administration’s argument might apply to the children of people trafficked illegally into the country.&nbsp;
Trump listened in, becoming the first sitting president in history to attend a Supreme Court argument.
The court’s liberal women justices pressed the administration on how enforcing the order would work in practice. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered if the administration seeks to retroactively “unnaturalize” people born to noncitizen parents but have already secured birthright citizenship; Solicitor General D. John Sauer responded that the administration does not intend to take retroactive action. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, “Are we bringing pregnant women in for depositions?"
In an interview with The 19th after the oral arguments, Hannah Steinberg, a staff attorney on the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project who assisted with the case, brought up the issue of enforcement: Who will be responsible for verifying the immigration status of a newborn’s parents?&nbsp;&nbsp;
“Are women going to have to bring their identification to the hospital? Is the hospital going to check?” Steinberg said. “It's a huge impact. It unsettles our entire system of law and practice.”
These questions underscore the wide-reaching effect Trump’s birthright order would have.
An <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/11/01/the-number-of-u-s-born-babies-with-unauthorized-immigrant-parents-has-fallen-since-2007/#:~:text=About%20250%2C000%20babies%20were%20born,of%20all%20births%20in%202007.">estimated 250,000 babies</a> are born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents without authorization. Narrowing the scope of birthright citizenship threatens to expand the number of people living in the country without authorization for generations. An estimated 2.7 million additional people would be unauthorized by 2045, and 5.4 million additional people by 2075, according to projections published by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University.
The American Civil Liberties Union is representing a group of parents and children who would be affected by Trump’s order. In its challenge to the administration, Cecillia Wang, national legal director for the ACLU, argued that establishing a permanent domicile was not the focus of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.&nbsp;
“The 14th Amendment's fixed bright line rule has contributed to the growth and thriving of our nation. It comes from text and history. It is workable and it prevents manipulation,” Wang told the justices.
She added, “The executive order fails on all those counts; swaths of American laws would be rendered senseless. Thousands of American babies will immediately lose their citizenship, and if you credit the government's theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans past, present and future could be called into question.”
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order denying birthright citizenship to children born to immigrants without legal status and temporary visitors from foreign countries. The order ushered in some of the most aggressive immigration enforcement in U.S. history, one that has had a notable impact on immigrant families.
In a number of lawsuits, civil rights and immigrant advocacy organizations, as well as four states, argued that the order violates the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause and longstanding legal precedent that has upheld birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens. A federal judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the administration’s ability to enforce the order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”&nbsp;
The Trump administration filed an emergency petition last year asking the Supreme Court to limit federal judges’ <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/06/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-ruling/">ability to issue nationwide injunctions</a>, also known as “universal” injunctions. In June 2025, the court’s conservative majority weakened the power of lower courts to issue injunctions that block the implementation of White House policies nationwide.
The ACLU argues that the scope of birthright citizenship and its inclusion of the children of noncitizen parents was affirmed by the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which ruled in favor of a man born in California to Chinese parents. If the Trump administration seeks to overturn the Ark ruling, the ACLU contends, then it has not provided enough evidence to justify its interpretation of the citizenship clause.
Steinberg told The 19th that the legal definition of domicile applies to a person residing in the country who intends to remain indefinitely. That definition is “nowhere within the 14th Amendment,” she said.&nbsp;
“There's nothing that says, for example, that someone who is undocumented is not able to be domiciled here,” Steinberg added. “The government is not only inserting ‘domicile’ into the 14th Amendment, but totally reinventing what the concept even means.”
Many legal experts contend that birthright citizenship is settled law, strengthened by decades of court rulings. Still, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made it clear it is not averse to change long-standing legal precedent, as it did in recent years with the overturning of federal abortion protections and sharply limiting the consideration of race in college admissions.&nbsp;
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Supreme Court Appears Skeptical Over Trump’s Push to Restrict Citizenship at Birth

The case was brought by a Christian counselor who argued that Colorado’s ban violated her free speech rights.

Protecting LGBTQ+ Youth From Conversion Therapy

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<a href="https://19thnews.org/author/kate-sosin">Kate Sosin</a> | <a href="https://19thnews.org">The 19th</a> Mar. 31, 2026

<a href="https://19thnews.org/2026/03/supreme-court-colorado-lgbtq-conversion-therapy?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=19th-republishing&utm_content=/2026/03/supreme-court-colorado-lgbtq-conversion-therapy">This story</a> was originally published by <a href="https://19thnews.org">The 19th</a>.
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Tuesday that a Colorado ban on conversion therapy for youth violates the free speech rights of a Christian counselor, clearing the way for a practice that goes against the recommendations of every major medical association in the country.
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/supreme-court-allows-licensed-mental-health-practitioners-to-traumatize-children">condemned the ruling as “cruel” in a statement to the media Tuesday</a>.
“Today’s reckless decision means more American kids will suffer,” she said. “The Court has weaponized free-speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health and wellbeing of children.”
Conversion therapy is a <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/conversion-therapy-issue-brief.pdf">pseudoscientific practice</a> in which providers attempt to change a youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity, often through extremely harsh methods including acts of physical, psychological and sexual abuse against minors — <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/conversion-therapy-issue-brief.pdf">electric shock, masturbation reconditioning, starvation</a>, chemically induced nausea and hypnosis, among others.
The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2020/07/conversion-therapy-can-amount-torture-and-should-be-banned-says-un-expert?ref=transjournalists.org">United Nations has deemed conversion therapy torture </a>and recommended it be banned.&nbsp; Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have laws banning conversion therapy for minors.&nbsp;
The decision comes on <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-history-behind-international-transgender-day-of-visibility">Transgender Day of Visibility</a>, a global day celebrating transgender lives and culture every March 31.&nbsp;
Some LGBTQ+ advocates note that while the ruling favors a discredited practice, it leaves most avenues of regulating conversion therapy untouched.
“I think the most important thing to understand about the decision today is that it only takes one way of regulating conversion therapy off the table,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights.
Tuesday’s ruling throws out Colorado’s ban, but does not strike down bans in other states, which advocates feared could be a worst-case scenario. The case, Chiles v. Salazar, was brought by Christian counselor Kaley Chiles, who argued that the ban violated her free speech rights. Chiles says she only offers talk therapy and does not use physical interventions or prescribe medications.&nbsp;&nbsp;
The ruling does not declare conversion therapy safe or effective. It also leaves intact the ability of medical licensing boards’ to investigate conversion therapy practice as fraudulent.&nbsp;
Minter said in a statement that the ruling still leaves room to discipline providers in states where it is banned.
"This decision is narrowly about how conversion therapy can be regulated. It does not mean that conversion therapy is safe or legal. Conversion therapy is still medical malpractice and consumer fraud," Minter said. "Every major medical organization in this country condemns it. Survivors can still bring malpractice and consumer fraud claims.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch argued that Colorado’s law applies beyond “physical interventions,” and restricts free speech.&nbsp;
“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same,” the opinion read. “But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth.”
The majority held that the right to free speech applies equally to licensed medical professionals as to all Americans.&nbsp;
As the lone dissent, <a href="https://19thnews.org/2023/06/ketanji-brown-jackson-one-year-supreme-court/">Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson</a> argued that the majority “failed to appreciate the crucial context” of Chiles’ case. “Chiles is not speaking in the ether; she is providing therapy to minors as a licensed healthcare professional,” she wrote.&nbsp;
Neither side disputed Colorado’s authority to regulate medical treatments and providers or claimed that a state doing so is unconstitutional, she said.&nbsp;
“So, in my view, it cannot also be the case that Colorado’s decision to restrict a dangerous therapy modality that, incidentally, involves provider speech is presumptively unconstitutional,” Jackson added. “In concluding otherwise, the Court’s opinion misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable and will eventually prove untenable for those who rely upon the long-recognized responsibility of states to regulate the medical profession for the protection of public health.”
This is the first of three LGBTQ+ blockbuster cases before the court this term. Two others, <a href="https://19thnews.org/2026/01/supreme-court-transgender-athletes-oral-arguments/?_gl=1*6dpd5z*_gcl_au*MTQwMzcxNTUyMS4xNzcxMzYzNzM3*_ga*NDg2NjgzMjYwLjE3NDIyMzk1MTM.*_ga_SYZRY4RD8J*czE3NzE4NzU0ODYkbzEzMCRnMSR0MTc3MTg3NTQ5NCRqNTIkbDAkaDA.">involving transgender athletes</a>, were heard at the same time earlier this year.
Grace Panetta contributed reporting.
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Supreme Court Says Colorado Can’t Ban Conversion Therapy for LGBTQ+ Youth

A rundown of some of the tech the government is deploying to identify and spy on us

Government Surveillance and Civil Liberties

How ICE Is Watching You

Hundreds of sidelined civil rights investigators are being called back to tackle a growing backlog after months of political upheaval at the Education Department.

Restoring Civil Rights Enforcement in Our Schools

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Shauneen Miranda | <a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com">News From The States</a> Dec. 8, 2025
 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Education Department is bringing back hundreds of employees in its Office for Civil Rights who were placed on paid administrative leave earlier this year, according to a Dec. 5 email to those employees obtained by States Newsroom.

 The effort came as the Office for Civil Rights, or OCR — which is tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families — has seen a growth in its massive backlog of those complaints.

 A spokesperson for the department confirmed the effort and said the staffers would resume work starting Dec. 15.

 <h2>Dismantling of department</h2>

 More than 200 OCR employees targeted as part of a larger Reduction in Force, or RIF, effort at the Education Department in March were placed on administrative leave amid legal challenges against President Donald Trump’s administration.

 Since taking office in January, Trump has sought to dismantle the 46-year-old agency in his quest to move education “back to the states.” He tapped Education Secretary Linda McMahon to fulfill that mission.

 “The Department will continue to appeal the persistent and unceasing litigation disputes concerning the Reductions in Force, but in the meantime, it will utilize all employees currently being compensated by American taxpayers,” Julie Hartman, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

 In the email to employees, the department said “it is important to refocus OCR’s work and utilize all OCR staff to prioritize OCR’s existing complaint caseload.”

 “In order for OCR to pursue its mission with all available resources, all those individuals currently being compensated by the Department need to meet their employee performance expectations and contribute to the enforcement of existing civil rights complaints,” the email notes.

 The agency did not respond to States Newsroom’s separate requests to confirm the text of the email. It is unclear how many of the more than 200 will return, or if some have taken other jobs.

 <h2>Union says millions of dollars wasted</h2>

 Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said that “for more than nine months, hundreds of employees at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have been sidelined from the critical work of protecting our nation’s most vulnerable students and families.”

 “Instead of following court orders and federal law, the Trump Administration chose to keep these civil rights professionals on paid administrative leave — a decision that has already wasted more than $40 million in taxpayer funds — rather than letting them do their jobs,” she said.

 Gittleman pointed to “severe” consequences, noting that “by blocking OCR staff from doing their jobs, Department leadership allowed a massive backlog of civil rights complaints to grow, and now expects these same employees to clean up a crisis entirely of the Department’s own making.”
<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/us-education-department-civil-rights-staff-returning-work-tackle-complaint-backlog">This article</a> was originally published by <a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com">News From The States</a>, which brings together daily reporting and commentary from States Newsroom’s affiliates, legacy partners and independent nonprofit content partners. 
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US Education Department Civil Rights Staff Returning to Work to Tackle Complaint Backlog

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’ attempt to challenge Obergefell v. Hodges was again rejected by the justices.

Protecting Marriage Equality Nationwide

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<a href="https://19thnews.org/author/kate-sosin?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=19th-republishing&utm_content=/2025/11/supreme-court-marriage-equality">Kate Sosin</a> | <a href="https://19thnews.org/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=19th-republishing&utm_content=/2025/11/supreme-court-marriage-equality">The 19th</a> Nov. 10, 2025
The Supreme Court will not hear a case to overturn marriage equality, it announced on Monday. The justices have rejected a petition from Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue licenses in the state a decade ago.
Davis’ petition has been closely watched, but was seen as a long shot.
For the past decade, Davis&nbsp; has been battling against giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She was jailed for six days and fined $100,000 plus attorney’s fees for refusing to do so.
It is the second time Davis petitioned the court to hear her case. She made similar arguments five years ago, and the court also <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/09/marriage-equality-obergefell-supreme-court/">declined to take up the case then.</a>&nbsp;
“Davis possesses a sincerely held religious belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” her petition to the high court stated.
She was largely viewed as one of few Americans with legal standing to challenge the 2015 ruling in <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/06/jim-obergefell-marriage-equality-reflections-10-years/">Obergefell v. Hodges</a> that made marriage equality the law of the land.&nbsp; But LGBTQ+ legal scholars have stated that her legal standing was still shaky and <a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/09/marriage-equality-obergefell-supreme-court/">that the foundation for marriage equality remains strong.</a>
Still, Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ legal organization said in a statement that now is not a time for LGBTQ+ advocates to let their guard down.&nbsp;
“This frivolous case now belongs in the trash bin of history,” Jennings said. “But let’s not be naïve: our opponents are well-resourced and determined.”&nbsp;
A majority of Americans would lose access to marriage equality if Obergefell&nbsp; was overturned;<a href="https://www.lgbtmap.org/news/Marriage-Report-March-2022"> 35 states have either a constitutional ban on marriage equality or a statute prohibiting LGBTQ+ couples from marrying. Some have both</a>.&nbsp;
However, in 2022, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, a law that forces states to recognize out-of-state marriages and that grandfathers pre-existing same-sex marriages into law. As a result, married LGBTQ+ couples would remain married and couples wanting to get married could do so by traveling to other states that allow marriage equality.
<a href="https://19thnews.org/2025/11/supreme-court-marriage-equality?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=19th-republishing&utm_content=/2025/11/supreme-court-marriage-equality">This story</a> was originally published by <a href="https://19thnews.org">The 19th</a>. 
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