Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
q2K BHP
Black History Portal
THE BHP WIRE —
HIDDEN TRUTHS
What's New!
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship" | |
 | |
 Front page of Executive Order 14160 | |
| Type | Executive order |
|---|---|
| Number | 14160 |
| President | Donald Trump |
| Signed | January 20, 2025 |
| Federal Register details | |
| Federal Register document number | 2025-02007  |
| Publication date | January 20, 2025 |
Repealed by | |
| Part of a series on the |
| Immigration policy of the second Trump administration |
|---|
Executive Order 14160, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship", is an executive order signed by Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States, on January 20, 2025. The executive order challenged the prevailing interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aiming to end birthright citizenship in the United States for children of unauthorized immigrants as well as immigrants legally but temporarily present in the U.S., such as those on student, work, or tourist visas.
The order was swiftly challenged in court by multiple organizations and states, being blocked by multiple federal judges.
On June 30, 2026, the order was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.[1]
Trump's executive order seeks to redefine how the Fourteenth Amendment's clause "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" should be interpreted.[2]
The executive order states two different situations where a person is no longer a U.S. citizen at birth.[3]
The executive order states that these provisions are only effective for people born 30 days or more after the date of the order; it would have only applied to children born beginning February 19, 2025 had it not been blocked.[3]
After the Supreme Court lifted the block, the order was set to go into effect on July 27, 2025; however, it was again blocked on July 10.[4]
At least ten lawsuits challenging the executive order have been brought by various plaintiffs, including 22 U.S. state attorneys general, civil liberties and immigrants rights groups, and pregnant women.[5][6] As of February 2025[update], four federal judges have issued preliminary injunctions blocking its implementation and enforcement nationwide.[7][6] On March 13, the Trump administration made emergency applications to the Supreme Court, asking it to narrow those court orders.[8] In these appeals, the government argued for its position on birthright citizenship.[9] On April 17, the Supreme Court said it would hear arguments in May.[10]
On January 21, Attorney General of Washington Nick Brown filed suit against the Trump administration in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, arguing that the order violates the 14th Amendment and federal immigration law. The lawsuit was joined by Arizona, Oregon, and Illinois.[11][12] It was the first of the lawsuits to get a hearing in court, when on January 23, Judge John C. Coughenour issued a temporary block on the order, calling it "blatantly unconstitutional."[13][14] On February 6, 2025, Coughenour granted a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the order, while accusing Trump of circumventing or ignoring the rule of law for personal or political gain.[7] The Department of Justice appealed the ruling later that day. The appeal was heard by the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.[5] On February 19, the appellate panel, the first to make a ruling on the executive order, denied to lift the preliminary injunction on an emergency basis, with the majority citing the unlikelihood of success on the underlying merits, setting the stage for fuller hearings in June 2025, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.[15]
A second lawsuit was filed in a Maryland federal court by immigrant and asylum-seeker rights groups CASA and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project on behalf of five pregnant women.[16] On February 5, US district judge Deborah Boardman issued a nationwide preliminary injunction, saying the order "conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year old binding Supreme Court precedent and runs counter to our nation's 250-year history of citizenship by birth" and was "likely to be found unconstitutional."[17] Attorneys for the Department of Justice appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on February 11, the second such appeal in cases related to the executive order after the appeal in State of Washington v. Trump.[18]
The executive order was challenged in court by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Asian Law Caucus in the case New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support v. Trump.[19] On February 10, Judge Joseph N. Laplante of the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire became the third federal judge to issue an injunction blocking the order.[20]
On January 21, a lawsuit challenging the order was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts by eighteen state attorneys general and the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., led by Attorney General of New Jersey Matthew J. Platkin.[11] On February 13, U.S. district judge Leo Sorokin became the fourth federal judge to block the executive order, issuing a nationwide preliminary injunction.[21] In the ruling, he wrote that the Constitution "confers birthright citizenship broadly, including to persons within the categories described" by the executive order.[22]
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to the three cases involving CASA, Inc., Washington, and New Jersey on April 17, 2025, consolidating them for oral arguments on May 15, 2025. The Supreme Court declined to stay any of the current orders from the lower courts in accepting the case. The case is expected to be limited to the jurisdiction of the federal district courts in placing nationwide injunctions, rather than on the question of the constitutionality of the executive order.[23] C-SPAN requested that the Supreme Court allow it to televise the proceedings,[24] which has never been allowed before;[25] the court did not do so. On June 27, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts could not use injunctions to block the implementation of the orders nationwide so long as court cases regarding the orders remained ongoing, but could only use these injunctions to shield the specific plaintiffs involved in the cases.[26][27]
Considering class actions the best means to challenge the order following the Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v. CASA, the ACLU filed a lawsuit asking the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire to grant a class-wide injunction blocking enforcement upon those who would not qualify for birthright citizenship under the executive order. CASA de Maryland filed a similar motion as well.[28]
On July 10, 2025, Judge Joseph Normand Laplante granted the ACLU's request, certified a class of born and unborn babies who would be deprived of their citizenship per the administration's policy, and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the order from being enforced upon that class.[4]
On November 21, the Supreme Court held a private meeting to decide whether to hear the Trump administration's appeals of the lower court rulings that blocked the executive order.[29] On December 5, the court agreed to hear the administration's appeals.[30] Oral arguments were heard on April 1, 2026. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the executive order was unconstitutional.[31]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Executive Order 14160, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship", is an executive order signed by Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States, on January 20, 2025. The executive order challenged the prevailing interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aiming to end birthright citizenship in the United States for children of unauthorized immigrants as well as immigrants legally but temporarily present in the U.S., such as those on student, work, or tourist visas. The order was swiftly challenged in court by multiple organizations and states, being blocked by multiple federal judges. On June 30, 2026, the order was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025), is a United States Supreme Court case addressing whether lower-court judges have the authority to issue "universal injunctions" to block the enforcement of policies nationwide. On June 27, 2025, the court ruled in a 6–3 decision that universal injunctions exceed the judiciary power unless necessary to provide the formal plaintiff with "complete relief". Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett emphasized that "complete relief" for a plaintiff was distinct from "universal relief" impacting all similar situations nationwide. While the case did not directly address birthright citizenship in the United States, it centered on several universal injunctions blocking Executive Order 14160, an order issued by President Donald Trump to redefine the government's understanding of the Citizenship Clause. Three district court judges issued universal preliminary injunctions to block the order nationwide while cases that they presided over proceeded through the legal system. The government appealed each case to the Supreme Court, arguing that district judges should only be allowed to prevent a policy from taking effect for the specific challengers filing a given lawsuit. The Supreme Court consolidated the appeals into Trump v. CASA. In its ruling, the court issued partial stays on existing injunctions except for those that were parties to the cases. The CASA opinion did not address the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship executive order and left open the ability for plaintiffs to pursue class-wide relief through class action lawsuits. In June 2026, the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of Executive Order 14160 in the case Trump v. Barbara.
Trump v. Barbara, 609 U.S. ___ (2026) is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that children born in the United States, including to parents unlawfully or temporarily present, are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868). The Court invalidated President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14160 (2025), which would have effectively denied birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children whose parents lacked U.S. citizenship or permanent residency. In the 6–3 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed, and Brett Kavanaugh agreed in part, to strike down the executive order. The Court split 5–4 on the executive order's constitutionality, with Roberts writing for the majority that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil and Kavanaugh concurring based on statute. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented, arguing that the executive order was not inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment. The case arose when a federal district court in New Hampshire certified a nationwide class of children affected by the executive order and issued a class-wide preliminary injunction preventing its enforcement, a remedy shaped by Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025). The Supreme Court granted the Trump administration's request for certiorari before judgment to resolve the constitutional question directly. Barbara led headlines and was regarded as one of the most high-stakes tests of the scope of the Citizenship Clause since the decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which both sides cited as precedent and which discussed the domicile of Wong Kim Ark's parents. The Court rejected the administration's argument that precedent limited birthright citizenship to children of U.S.-domiciled parents, holding that Wong Kim Ark's discussion of domicile described the case's facts without limiting the constitutional requirement. It also rejected the argument that the Fourteenth Amendment's ratifiers intended such a limitation. Drawing on English common law and precedent including Lynch v. Clarke (1844), it reaffirmed the long prevailing understanding of the Citizenship Clause. It confirmed that neither the president by executive order nor Congress by statute may deny citizenship at birth to persons recognized as citizens by the Fourteenth Amendment, leaving broad changes to birthright citizenship to the constitutional amendment process.
Executive Order 14253, titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", is an executive order signed by Donald Trump on March 31, 2025. The order seeks to shape how the Smithsonian Institution's museums, education, research centers, and the National Zoo characterize American history, aiming to "remove improper ideology from such properties" in order to project "a symbol of inspiration and American greatness". The order calls for the Department of the Interior to determine whether, since January 1, 2020, any monuments, memorials, statues and markers, within the department's jurisdiction contain any descriptions, depictions, or other content that "inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times)". Additionally, it orders the reinstatement of any pre-existing monuments, memorials, statues, and markers that have been removed or changed to "perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology." The National Park Service subsequently removed or flagged for removal signage and educational content at at least 25 sites in the National Park System including those relating to slavery and Black history, Native American history, climate change and conservation, and LGBTQ history.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
