The Briefing:
- Nathan v. Trump was filed September 28, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — challenging Executive Order 14418, Trump's revised birthright citizenship order signed August 6.
- The ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, and Democracy Defenders Fund are suing on behalf of families whose children were born — or are expected to be born — after the new order took effect.
- A preliminary injunction already blocks part of the order in a separate Maryland case, but it protects only that case's certified class; Nathan v. Trump seeks broader, permanent nationwide relief.
- Latinos represent nearly 80 percent of the children who would lose automatic citizenship in the short term under restrictions of this kind, according to a peer-reviewed Penn State study.
A new nationwide class-action lawsuit targeting President Trump's revised birthright citizenship executive order landed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on September 28 — the latest legal blow to an administration that has now lost on this issue before the Supreme Court and moved to rewrite the rules anyway.
That persistence puts the citizenship of children born to immigrant parents back in active legal jeopardy, at a moment when many families had reason to believe the fight was settled.
The Order That Refused to Die
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court handed the administration a decisive 6-to-3 defeat in Trump v. Barbara, ruling that the president's January 2025 executive order restricting birthright citizenship violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court was unequivocal: no executive action can strip citizenship from children born on U.S. soil to undocumented or temporarily present parents.
Then, 37 days later, Trump signed Executive Order 14418.
The revised order, formally titled "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," does not attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship across the board. Instead, it instructs federal agencies to stop recognizing automatic citizenship when neither parent is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and at least one parent falls into one of four newly created exception categories: designated "alien enemies," employees of foreign governments or international organizations, people who paid for or fraudulently obtained access to U.S. soil for a birth, and individuals born in certain U.S. territories where federal statute does not automatically confer citizenship.
One key detail separates EO 14418 from its predecessor: unlike the original order, the August 6 version carries no specified effective date, meaning its restrictions could apply to any child born after the date of signing.
The Lawsuit Behind the Name
The case takes its name from a child born in Washington, D.C., to "Clara," a citizen of France, and her husband — both employees of international organizations in the capital. Under EO 14418's foreign-government-employee carve-out, their son "Nathan" would not automatically receive U.S. citizenship.
The ACLU filed the complaint alongside the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Asian Law Caucus, ACLU of D.C., and Democracy Defenders Fund. Lead counsel Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said the administration's newest attack on birthright citizenship "is just as cruel and illegal as its previous executive order, and it will meet the same fate in court."
The groups had initially tried to challenge EO 14418 inside the existing Barbara litigation in New Hampshire, but after U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante signaled at a September 22 hearing that the new order involved a different class and likely required separate proceedings, advocates withdrew those motions and launched Nathan v. Trump as a standalone case.
The Existing Protection — and Why It Leaves Gaps
EO 14418 already has a judicial check on it. On September 2, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction in the CASA v. Trump class action, blocking the order from applying to that case's certified class members. Boardman ruled that the Supreme Court had already established those children are citizens at birth and called EO 14418 "almost certainly unconstitutional" as applied to the covered class.
But that injunction is temporary — and limited. It protects only families enrolled in the CASA class action, not the full universe of parents whose children could fall under EO 14418's four exception categories. The Nathan case is specifically designed to fill that gap with a permanent, nationwide ruling.
Every temporary injunction blocking the order is subject to appeal, and the Trump administration has signaled it will contest each one.
What Expecting Families Need to Know Right Now
For immigrant parents currently expecting a child, here is the current legal reality as of October 1, 2026:
Children already born in the United States retain their citizenship status. Existing court orders bar the State Department, Social Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security from denying citizenship documents to children in the CASA class.
But families whose circumstances fall outside that certified class — including some parents working for foreign governments or international organizations — do not currently have a court order shielding their child's citizenship. They are waiting on Nathan v. Trump.
Why Latino Families Are Watching This Case Most Closely
The stakes fall disproportionately on Latino families. A peer-reviewed study published in March 2026 in the journal Demography found that Latinos would make up nearly 80 percent of all children who would be born without automatic citizenship in the short term under a restricted framework — and that by 2050, more than 90 percent of the U.S.-born unauthorized population could be Latino if restrictions take full effect.
A March 2026 Pew Research Center analysis estimated that roughly 260,000 babies are born in the United States each year to mothers in immigration categories that would have disqualified them under the original executive order — nearly 9 percent of all U.S. births.
The Brennan Center for Justice has noted that the legal uncertainty surrounding birthright citizenship has already affected Latino children's access to prenatal care and their families' willingness to use government services — consequences that compound even when no order is currently in effect.
What Happens Next
The Nathan v. Trump case proceeds in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. If the court moves to issue a nationwide preliminary injunction covering all families targeted by EO 14418, it would extend legal protection well beyond the CASA class. If it does not move quickly, expecting families outside that class remain in a legal gray zone with no formal court protection.
Birthright citizenship is currently the law of the land. Whether it still functions that way for every family by the time today's expecting parents give birth depends on how fast the courts move — and on how hard the White House keeps pushing to reopen a constitutional question the Supreme Court ruled it already answered.
