Case: CASA Inc. v. Trump
8:25-cv-00201 | U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
Filed Date: Jan. 21, 2025
Case Ongoing
Clearinghouse coding complete
Case Summary
This case is one of several challenging President Trump's effort to narrow birthright citizenship--the Fourteenth Amendment right to U.S. citizenship to individuals born on U.S. soil and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." You can see all such cases here.
President Trump was sworn in to his second term as President on January 20, 2025, and immediately issued a number of Executive Orders--including Executive Order 14160, which proclaimed that birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to children born in the United States when: (1) their mother was unlawfully present in the country and their father was neither a U.S. citizen nor a permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth; or (2) when their mother was lawfully, but temporarily, present in the United States and their father was neither a U.S. citizen nor a permanent resident.
On January 21, 2025, two non-profit membership-based immigrants-rights organizations – CASA Inc. (CASA) and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) – and five pregnant women, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, challenging the Executive Order. The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys within their respective organizations and the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. Named defendants included President Donald J. Trump and officials of the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Social Security Administration. The case was assigned to Judge Deborah L. Boardman.
The plaintiffs brought their challenge to the Executive Order under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and under 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a) which states that every “person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” “shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” They sought a declaration that the Executive Order is unconstitutional, both on its face and as applied to them, and that it violates 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a). The plaintiffs also sought a declaration that all children born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents covered by the Executive Order are U.S. citizens, entitled to all related rights and privileges. Additionally, they requested a preliminary and permanent injunction to prevent the enforcement of the Executive Order, an award for legal costs and attorney's fees, and any other relief the court deems appropriate. On February 3, the State of Tennessee filed an amicus brief in support of defendants.
Judge Boardman granted a nationwide preliminary injunction after holding a hearing on February 5, 2025. Judge Boardman found that the Executive Order conflicted with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicted 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent, and ran counter to the nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth. 763 F.Supp.3d 723. On February 11, 2025, the defendants filed a notice of interlocutory appeal, appealing to the Fourth Circuit the court's Memorandum and Order granting plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. On March 25, 2025, the Fourth Circuit agreed to expedite oral argument in this case by scheduling it during the September 2025 sitting.
The defendants also filed a motion for a partial stay, requesting that the court stay the injunction's nationwide application so that it would apply only to the individual plaintiffs and organization plaintiffs who had been identified in the complaint or preliminary injunction papers. On Feb. 18, the district court denied the defendants’ motion for a partial stay pending appeal. 2025 WL 545840.
In the Court of Appeals, the government also sought a stay pending appeal, which that Court denied on Feb. 28, 2025. 2025 WL 654902.
In the United States Supreme Court, on March 13, 2025, the United States' Acting Solicitor General Harris filed an application for a partial stay of the district court's injunctions in this case, in State of Washington v. Trump, and in State of New Jersey v. Trump. Arguing that the injunctions improperly granted relief to non-parties and prevented the executive branch from taking steps to implement the Executive Order, the Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court to stay the preliminary injunction in this case "except as to the five individual respondents and the eleven members of the organizational respondents identified in the complaint."
On March 14, 2025, a coalition of 18 members of Congress--led by Rep. Jim Jordan--who served on the Judiciary Committee filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court supporting the government's application for stays in these three cases, as did the State of Tennessee. On March 28, 2025, the Attorney General of Iowa, on behalf of Iowa and 19 other states, also filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court supporting the government.
The Supreme Court consolidated the applications for partial stays in the three birthright citizenship cases pending before it and scheduled oral argument for May 15, 2025. The Court deferred resolution of the stays/applications pending its decision--which was issued on June 27, 2025. 145 S.Ct. 2540. Justice Barrett, writing for a 6-3 majority (with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting), found that "universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts." Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have jurisdiction over "all suits in equity," which the Court had previously held "encompasses only those sorts of equitable remedies traditionally accorded by courts of equity at our country's inception." Here, the Court found that universal injunctions were not "sufficiently analogous" to any relief offered by the court of equity in England at the time of the founding.
Instead, the Court focused on the requirement that parties (not individuals who are not parties before the Court) receive complete relief. It held that an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the EO against the particular individual plaintiffs in this case gave them complete relief, so the challenged injunctions were overbroad with regard to the individual plaintiffs. However, the Court declined to consider whether the injunctions were overbroad with regard to the state plaintiffs, leaving that question to the lower courts to consider (expeditiously) in the first instance. The Court also left open the possibility of a nationwide injunction in cases with a certified nationwide class. Therefore, the Court issued a partial stay of the preliminary injunctions but "only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue." Since the overbreadth issue had not yet been resolved, the injunctions remained in effect.
In response to and on the same day as the Supreme Court's decision, the individual plaintiffs in this case filed an amended complaint in the district court. The amended complaint added additional new individual plaintiffs and asked the district court to certify a class of “All children who have been born or will be born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, who are designated by Executive Order 14,160 to be ineligible for birthright citizenship, and their parents.” The plaintiffs argued that the class was sufficiently numerous as to make joinder impractical, that numerous questions of fact and law were common to the class, and that the class representatives (the individual plaintiffs) had claims that were typical of the class and would serve as adequate class representatives in the litigation. The plaintiffs also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, asking the court to issue an order protecting the putative class.
On July 16, 2025 the district court entered an indicative ruling regarding the plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The court ruled that it "does not have jurisdiction over the motion because nearly every aspect of it is on appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit." However, the court issued an indicative ruling that "[i]f the Fourth Circuit were to remand for the limited purpose of allowing this Court to decide the motion for a class-wide preliminary injunction, the Court would grant the motion." The court decided to hold the motion in abeyance while waiting for further guidance from the Fourth Circuit.
On July 29, 2025 the Fourth Circuit dismissed the appeal and remanded the case in its entirety to the district court to "allow the district court to comport expeditiously with the Supreme Court’s directions in CASA, ensuring that any injunction complies with that decision." 2025 WL 2141296.
Thereafter, on August 7, 2025, the district court certified a nationwide class and extended preliminary injunctive relief to all members of that class.
First, it granted the motion for class certification, although it modified the proposed class definition. 2025 WL 2263001. Plaintiffs sought to certify a class of “All children who have been born or will be born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, who are designated by Executive Order 14,160 to be ineligible for birthright citizenship, and their parents.” The court concluded that "their parents" were not appropriately included in the class definition because the parents, in their individual capacities, could not establish that they would suffer the same injury as the children or as other parents, and therefore did not satisfy the commonality or typicality requirements for certification. The court modified the class definition and certified the following class:
Any child who has been born or will be born in the United States after February 19, 2025, (1) whose mother was unlawfully present in the United States and whose father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) whose mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary and whose father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
Next, the court enjoined enforcement of Executive Order 14,160 against the nationwide class, citing, among other considerations, the extreme likelihood that plaintiffs would succeed on their claim that the Order violated the Fourteenth Amendment. 2025 WL 2257625.
On October 3, 2025, the government appealed the new, classwide injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
On December 5, 2025, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Barbara v. Trump in order to resolve the issue of the constitutionality of the EO, and on December 9, 2025, the appellate court in this case granted the government's motion for abeyance, holding this case in abeyance pending the Supreme Court's decision in Barbara and in Trump v. Washington.
The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Barbara on April 1, 2026. On June 30, 2026, the Court affirmed the preliminary injunction in that case, holding that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and therefore acquire citizenship at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. 2026 WL 1870543. The Court further held that Executive Order 14160 conflicts with both the Citizenship Clause and 8 U.S.C. § 1401.
The appeal remained in abeyance from December 9, 2025 until August 14, 2026, when the Fourth Circuit dismissed the government’s appeal. Because the Supreme Court's decision in Barbara resolved the principal constitutional question presented in this case, further proceedings in the Fourth Circuit and the district court were expected to proceed consistent with that decision.
In the interim, on August 6, 2026, President Trump issued Executive Order 14418, “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The new executive order directed federal agencies not to recognize the U.S. citizenship of certain U.S.-born children when neither parent is a U.S. citizen, including where a parent is deemed an “alien enemy,” is a foreign government employee, or engaged in certain transactions to obtain birthright citizenship.
On August 14, 2026, the Fourth Circuit dismissed the government’s appeal and issued its mandate on August 14, 2026. Separately, the district court lifted the stay that had been in place pending the appeal on August 18, 2026.
On August 25, 2026, the plaintiffs moved for additional classwide preliminary injunctive relief or, in the alternative, a classwide temporary restraining order, seeking to bar enforcement of EO 14418 against the previously certified class.
Separately, on August 28, 2026, the district court denied without prejudice the plaintiff’s motion for additional classwide preliminary injunctive relief or a classwide temporary restraining order and granted the plaintiff’s motion to supplement the amended class action complaint.
That same day, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint alleging that EO 14418 violated the Fourteenth Amendment and 8 U.S.C. § 1401. The plaintiffs argued that the Order’s “alien enemy,” foreign-government-employee, and commercial-transaction categories would deny birthright citizenship to members of the class who do not fall within any recognized exception to birthright citizenship. The plaintiffs also filed a separate motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to bar enforcement of EO 14418.
On September 2, 2026, Judge Boardman granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, enjoining enforcement of EO 14418 against the certified class. 2026 WL 2592706. The court found that the plaintiffs were highly likely to succeed on their claim that the new EO violated the class members’ Fourteenth Amendment right to citizenship, since the Supreme Court had already held in Barbara that the children comprising the class were citizens at birth. The court declined to decide whether each of the new EO’s purported exceptions to birthright citizenship was facially unconstitutional.
On September 8, 2026, the government moved to dissolve the preliminary injunction or, alternatively, to stay it. The government argued that guidance issued by seven federal agencies established that EO 14418 would apply prospectively and thus would not affect children already born.
The plaintiffs opposed the motion on September 22, arguing that the agency guidance did not clearly limit the executive order’s application to children born after its implementation.
The government filed a further brief on October 6, 2026, arguing that the existing plaintiffs lacked standing because EO 14418 would not apply to children born before its implementation. The government also argued that the previously certified class was overbroad and did not adequately correspond to the categories covered by the new executive order. The government asked the court to dissolve the injunction or, in the alternative, stay it.
This case is ongoing.
Summary Authors
Niam Vora (7/1/2026)
Colton French (1/29/2025)
Nicole Brigstock (4/21/2025)
Jeremiah Price (6/28/2025)
Taite Puhala (12/7/2025)
Clearinghouse (12/9/2025)
People
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69563661/parties/casa-inc-v-trump/
Attorney, Yuri S.
Adams, John Christian
Ancheta, Angelo
Anderson, Kristyn
Babar, Rahat N.
Documents in the Clearinghouse
Resources
Docket
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69563661/casa-inc-v-trump/
Last updated Oct. 28, 2026, 5:21 a.m.
Docket for: Casa Inc. v. Trump
Case Details
State / Territory:
Case Type(s):
Special Collection(s):
Trump Administration 2.0: Challenges to the Government
Key Dates
Filing Date: Jan. 21, 2025
Case Ongoing: Yes
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
Organizational plaintiffs include the non-profits CASA Inc. (CASA) and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), and individual plaintiffs are CASA and ASAP members who are currently pregnant, reside in the U.S., and fear that their children will be denied citizenship under Executive Order 14160.
Plaintiff Type(s):
Non-profit NON-religious organization
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: Yes
Class Action Outcome: Granted
Defendants
Federal
Social Security Administration
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Justice
U.S. Department of State
United States
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201
Ex Parte Young (Federal) or Bivens
Ex parte Young (federal or state officials)
Constitutional Clause(s):
Other Dockets:
District of Maryland 8:25-cv-00201
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit 25-01153
Supreme Court of the United States 24A884
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit 25-02188
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit 25-01223
Available Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
U.S. Supreme Court merits opinion
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff OR Mixed
Relief Sought:
Relief Granted:
Preliminary injunction / Temp. restraining order
Source of Relief:
Content of Injunction:
National / Universal injunction
Issues
Discrimination Basis:
National origin discrimination
Immigration/Border:
Undocumented immigrants - rights and duties
Undocumented immigrants - state and local regulation
Case Summary of CASA Inc. v. Trump, Civil Rights Litig. Clearinghouse, https://clearinghouse.net/case/45965/ (last updated 12/9/2025).