--- title: Supreme Court Protest Draws 500 Over Birthright Citizenship description: Members of Congress who benefited from birthright citizenship protested alongside those worried about what if their future kids. canonical: https://time.com/7285742/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-protest/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-05-15T21:27:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:45.182Z article:section: Politics og:title: Supreme Court Protest Draws 500 Over Birthright Citizenship og:description: Standing amid a throng of fellow protesters outside the Supreme Court Thursday morning, Young Woon Han was worried about his future son or daughter. og:url: https://time.com/7285742/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-protest/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea50190d62cb90b8/6998c6a293610c16b3c2fa19/GettyImages-2215288485.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Activists Protest At The Supreme Court Against Trump's Attempt To End Birthright Citizenship og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Supreme Court Protest Draws 500 Over Birthright Citizenship twitter:description: Standing amid a throng of fellow protesters outside the Supreme Court Thursday morning, Young Woon Han was worried about his future son or daughter. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltea50190d62cb90b8/6998c6a293610c16b3c2fa19/GettyImages-2215288485.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hundreds of Protesters Outside Supreme Court Call on Justices to Protect Birthright Citizenship > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1ab59dcf-b922-4e15-acc0-1f658ea6b4a2&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Supreme Court Hears High-Stakes Case on Birthright Citizenship and Federal Courts’ Power [Watch (HLS stream): Supreme Court Hears High-Stakes Case on Birthright Citizenship and Federal Courts’ Power](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/HOuXAll2.m3u8) (3:08)  _Published 2025-05-16. The Supreme Court is hearing its first set of Trump-related arguments in the second Trump presidency. The case stems from the executive order President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office that would deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily._  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME. May 15, 2025 9:27 PM UTC  From left, Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Pramila Jayapal and Sylvia Garcia, take part in a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as Justices hear a case involving birthright citizenship in Washington, DC, on May 14, 2025. From left, Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Pramila Jayapal and Sylvia Garcia, take part in a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as Justices hear a case involving birthright citizenship in Washington, DC, on May 14, 2025. Alex Wong—Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME. May 15, 2025 9:27 PM UTC Standing amid a throng of fellow protesters outside the Supreme Court Thursday morning, Young Woon Han was worried about his future son or daughter. Han was born in Korea and is a lawful permanent resident living and working in Columbus, Ohio. His wife, who was also born in Korea, is in the U.S. on a work permit. The couple has discussed having a child. The nine Justices inside the courthouse were taking up a case involving an [executive order](https://time.com/7208965/birthright-citizenship-trump-order/) from President Donald Trump creating exceptions to the Constitutional guarantee that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. The Administration's effort are "making us nervous, for sure, as an aspirational parent," Han says. Under Trump’s order, a child born to Han and his wife should still be allowed to become a citizen. But Han is concerned that Trump might not stop there. "We are afraid that the way things are going, some policy may not affect us now, but it is eventually going to affect all of us," Han says. Han was among about 500 people standing outside the Supreme Court Thursday morning as the Justices heard oral arguments in the divisive case. Protestors chanted "Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here" and "Sí, se puede." At one point, the crowd sang Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." Under the order Trump [issued](https://time.com/7208965/birthright-citizenship-trump-order/) on his first day back in office, a child born to parents who lack U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residency status would no longer be allowed to become a citizen. Multiple district courts moved to temporarily block Trump’s action. The Justices on Thursday were considering the Administration’s request to limit the district court injunctions to the states within each of those court’s jurisdictions. Stepping up to a microphone in front of the courthouse’s iconic columns, Han told the crowd to imagine two babies born at the same time in two different hospitals in neighboring states. “If there’s no nationwide injunction, one baby gets US citizenship and the other doesn't. It ain’t right.” Han held a cardboard sign with the words "Know your rights" and "Wong Kim Ark" written on it. Wong Kim Ark was a Chinese American cook born in San Francisco in the 1870s. In 1896, after a trip to China, immigration officials tried to deny him entry back into the US under the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese nationals from migrating to the US at the time. But Wong argued that the 14th Amendment protected his US citizenship because he was born in the country. The stalemate went to the Supreme Court in 1898, with the court confirming in a 6-to-2 decision that Wong was a citizen, setting a precedent that birthright citizenship in the US is universal. Multiple members of Congress addressed the crowd outside the courthouse. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Democrat from Illinois, said the case around protecting birthright citizenship nationally is personal for her. “I am a birthright citizen. My mother and my father were undocumented when I was born. And they raised me to fight for justice, to speak truth to power and to see our shared humanity.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state also spoke about being one of 19 naturalized U.S. citizens who have served in Congress. Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California stood with protesters in front of the steps of the court, reading aloud the text of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The crowd cheered when the former Speaker of the House read that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Pelosi encouraged people to continue to speak up. “The outside mobilization is very, very important. Know your power.” ## Transcript On January 20th, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14 160 protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship. This order reflects the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship to the children of former slaves, not to illegal aliens or temporary visitors. Multiple district courts promptly issued nationwide or universal injunctions blocking this order, and a cascade of such universal injunctions followed. Since January, 20th, district courts have now issued 40 universal injunctions against the federal government, including 35 from the same five judicial districts. This is a bipartisan problem that has now spanned the last five presidential administrations. Universal injunctions exceed the judicial power granted in article three, which exists only to redress the injury to the complaining party. They transgressed the traditional bounds of equitable authority, and they create a host of practical problems. I mean, that's a lot of words, and I don't have an answer for if one thinks and, you know, look, there are all kinds of abuses of nationwide injunctions. But I think that the question that this case presents is that if one thinks that it's quite clear that the EO is illegal, how does one get to that result? In what time frame on your set of rules without the possibility of a nationwide injunction. On this case and on many similar cases? The appropriate way to do it is for there to be multiple lower courts considering it, the appropriate percolation that goes through the lower courts, and then ultimately this court decides the merits in a nationwide binding precedent. You have a complete inversion of that through the nationwide injunctions where the district. Are you really going to answer, Justice Kagan, by saying there's no way to do this expeditiously? Well, I refer to my further former answer as rule 23 provides the tools to do so. Multiple. But you resisted Justice Kagan when she said, could the individual plaintiffs form a class? We, uh, that has never been briefed in the court below? I do not concede that we wouldn't oppose class certification in this particular case. There may be arguments that this case is or is not appropriate for class certification. This court should deny the emergency application, because this injunction was properly designed to ensure that the states would get relief for our own. Article three injuries as we suffer significant pocketbook and sovereign harms from implementation of this executive order, including from the application of this EO to the 6000 babies born to new Jersey parents out of state every year, the U.S. prefers alternative approaches for granting that relief alternatives it never raised in the district court below, but its approach would require citizenship to vary based on the state in which you're born, or even turn on or off when someone crosses state lines, raising serious and unanswered administrability questions not just for the federal government, but also for the states. And it would offend the text and history of the citizenship clause itself. 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