The high court on Tuesday upheld that anyone born on American soil is a citizen of the United States – no matter whether their parents are immigrants.
“This administration continually tries to gaslight us about what it means to be an American and this decision shot that down,” said Laura Lichter, a Denver immigration attorney who has represented hundreds of clients who would have been affected had the Supreme Court gone the other way. “This decision says it’s not about who your parents are or what is being dictated by some politician. … It says if you were born here, you are subject to our laws.”
Tami Goodlette, who works at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said the alternate decision would have sparked widespread chaos for the organization’s hundreds of clients.
“Children who would have been born to our clients here in this country would not have been citizens and that would have had a devastating effect,” Goodlette said. “And that’s not only on their families but also on hundreds of thousands of children and babies born in the United States going forward.”
Tim Macdonald, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado legal director, said his organization filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration within two hours of the president’s executive order attempting to ban the guarantee of birthright citizenship, which was issued in January 2025.
Macdonald said thousands of people, including babies and children, in Colorado were hanging on the decision before figuring out their futures. Macdonald was preparing to file his own case in Colorado if he needed to, but because Trump’s executive order was stayed relatively quickly nationally, it never went into effect here or anywhere else.
“This was part and parcel of a campaign to terrorize people,” he said. “And we’ve had some successes fighting it.”
Colorado’s elected officials – wholly Democrats – also weighed in on the decision.
Attorney General Phil Weiser and Sen. Michael Bennet, both of whom are running for governor, applauded the decision and said they were relieved on behalf of the Coloradans who would have been affected.
“It’s astonishing that we had to fight this case because the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment is so plainly clear,” Weiser said in a statement. “The president cannot rewrite the Constitution or redefine what it means to be American with the stroke of a Sharpie.”
Bennet agreed, saying the Supreme Court’s ruling that any attempt to undermine the constitutional guarantee is unlawful.
“That is a victory for the rule of law, for our Constitution, and for the promise of this country,” he said in a statement.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, who represents Aurora and the GEO immigration detention center and has spent a lot of time the past year and a half tangling with the Trump administration about what’s happening inside, said the ruling was a relief.
“Today’s ruling underscores that fundamental truth: people born on American soil are Americans, with all the rights and responsibilities we share as fellow citizens,” he said in a statement.
Hans Meyer, a Denver immigration attorney, said his firm’s hundreds of clients are collectively relieved and called the decision for them “life changing.”
But, he said, he doesn’t view it as a victory.
“The fact that this case had to be litigated for the last 18 months and it was one of the first acts of this administration doesn’t feel like a victory. I view it as a defense,” Meyer said. “Sticking a knife in someone’s back 6 inches and pulling it out 3 inches isn’t progress.”
Lichter, who has been an immigration attorney for 30 years, said she does this work because she wants to have faith in the system.
“The people who seek to limit immigration are really just showing that they don’t have faith in America, in our schools, in our communities, in our military,” she said. “Those who choose to be part of this nation are the strongest supporters of it and are the best reflection of who we are when we’re at our best. The people who want to limit who can come here lack faith in how amazing our form of government really is and how unique it is.”
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