Constitutional Accountability Center Constitutional Accountability Center

Immigration and Citizenship

Using the Constitution’s text and history to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens and immigrants
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Eastern European Jewish war orphans arrive in the United States | American Jewish Joint Distribution Center

Summary

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause is one of the most important provisions of the Constitution, guaranteeing birthright citizenship. CAC uses this and other constitutional provisions, along with federal statutes, to ensure that the rights of all are secured.

Immigration and Citizenship in Brief

Naturalization ceremony in Atlanta, GA | David Lienemann, White House Archives

The Trump administration, through its Muslim travel ban, has shown a disregard for the Constitution and a willingness to write discrimination into our laws. CAC, in these cases and elsewhere, fights to ensure that such attacks do not succeed.

Featured Case

Immigration and Citizenship December 9, 2019

Grace v. Barr

The Refugee Act authorizes executive branch officials to grant asylum to people who are unable or unwilling to return to their home country “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”  A later amendment to the immigration laws created an expedited removal process for certain individuals arriving in this country without proper documentation, but permitted those individuals to remain in the country and apply for asylum if they can show a “credible fear of persecution.” In June 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a...

Case Timeline

Current
  • The D.C. Circuit hears oral arguments
  • CAC files amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit

Related Issue Areas

Civil and Human Rights See More
Criminal Justice See More