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CASL Joins Allies United in Celebrating the Supreme Court’s Defense of Birthright Citizenship
The ruling affirms a promise Chinese American community first won at the Supreme Court in 1898. CASL says the fight to protect every immigrant family isn’t over.
Civic Engagement & Advocacy
On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed what the Constitution has guaranteed for more than 150 years: a child born in this country is a citizen of this country. The 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Barbara struck down an executive order that sought to end birthright citizenship. CASL joined ICIRR and fellow Allies United coalition members at a Chicago news conference to mark the win, alongside The Resurrection Project, the Illinois Latino Agenda and the ACLU of Illinois.
The case carries special weight for CASL. In 1898, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, won the Supreme Court case that first established birthright citizenship as the law of the land. His fight is why the question was ever settled, and it’s why CASL stood with coalition partners this week.
“In 1898, a Chinese American born in San Francisco, Wong Kim Ark, won the case that made birthright citizenship the law of the land. Today, the Court honored that promise. We will keep standing with every community until it protects every family.”
— Paul Luu, CEO, CASL
At the press conference, Luu added: “Our responsibility is to ensure that no children born in this country ever have to question whether they belong in the only home that they know. We’ll continue to defend that right for our children and generations to come.”
CASL’s place in Allies United traces back to Martin Castro, CEO of Casa Central, who first brought CASL into the coalition. His reaction to the ruling was personal.
“As the son of a birthright citizen father and a Mexican immigrant mother, I am overjoyed by today’s decision preserving the 14th Amendment’s legacy to our democracy. This decision is about the right to have rights. And despite today’s favorable ruling, there are many more rights we must fight to defend, and we shall use the rights reconfirmed today to do so.”
— Martin R. Castro, CEO, Casa Central
Other coalition leaders were just as clear that the ruling settles one question without closing the book on the broader campaign against immigrant communities. This same Supreme Court term cleared the way to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for an estimated 350,000 Haitian and roughly 6,100 Syrian nationals, with protections for as many as 1.3 million people from 17 countries now in jeopardy. ICE’s detained population hit an all-time high of more than 73,000 people in January 2026, an 84 percent jump in a single year, in what advocates call the deadliest year in ICE detention on record.
“But let us be clear-eyed about the moment we are in. This same term, the Court cleared the way to strip Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian families. Tonight, tens of thousands of people sit in ICE detention, in a system that just recorded its deadliest year ever. And across the country, people who dared to raise their voices for immigrants are being sentenced to decades in prison.”
— Karen Freeman-Wilson, President and CEO, Chicago Urban League
ICIRR convened the news conference. “A resounding reaffirmation of the long-standing principle that people born in the USA are U.S. citizens,” said Fred Tsao, ICIRR’s senior policy counsel. Coverage ran across Chicago television and digital outlets throughout the day, carrying that message to a wide audience: this win belongs to everyone who organized for it, and the work continues.
CASL is a proud member of Allies United, an intersectional coalition of more than 110 Illinois organizations working across racial, faith and community lines to defend civil rights. That solidarity, coalition leaders said, is exactly what this moment calls for.
CASL encourages community members to stay informed, look out for one another and connect with trusted resources like ICIRR for support navigating TPS terminations, detention and enforcement actions. With the November 2026 midterms ahead, CASL also urges everyone eligible to register and vote.
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