By The Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) criticized an executive order targeting birthright citizenship. The U.S. Catholic bishops are reviewing and monitoring the order.
A Catholic legal group criticized President Donald Trump’s executive orders to restrict birthright citizenship, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is reviewing and monitoring them.
The executive orders issued Aug. 6 direct the government to stop allowing foreign visitors to enter the United States on short‑term visas for the purpose of giving birth and impose a narrower limit on birthright citizenship after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a broader attempt to end citizenship for children born to people in the country temporarily or unlawfully.
One executive order would end automatic birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are not U.S. citizens and engage in a commercial transaction or fraudulent activity to ensure the mother is inside U.S. territory to give birth. It also would end birthright citizenship for a child born of a parent considered an “alien enemy,” including members of terrorist organizations.
A second executive order titled “Ending Birth Tourism” authorizes federal departments to implement rules that prevent the entry of pregnant foreign women seeking to give birth in the United States and allow removal if they enter the country. The order refers to noncitizens entering the U.S. for the purpose of giving birth on American soil and efforts from a foreign national to coordinate such entries.
Under existing State Department guidance, consular officers can deny a B‑1/B‑2 visitor visa if they believe the applicant’s primary purpose is to give birth in the U.S. to obtain citizenship for the child.
Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), criticized the birthright citizenship executive order in a statement to EWTN News.
“The Supreme Court has already spoken: birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution,” Gallagher said.
“This latest attempt by the Trump administration to circumvent settled law only creates needless fear and uncertainty for immigrant families,” she added. “Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold the dignity of every person and welcome the stranger — not seek new ways to exclude them.”
The USCCB has not taken a clear position on the executive orders yet, but it is monitoring how they are enforced and potential judicial proceedings.
“The USCCB supports the application of constitutional principles and the rule of law in a manner consistent with the God-given dignity of every human person,” USCCB spokesperson Chieko Noguchi told EWTN News.
“We’re reviewing the executive orders and will continue to monitor for administrative actions taken and possible judicial proceedings concerning their implementation,” she said.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled the 14th Amendment of the Constitution protects automatic birthright citizenship with few exceptions. The protection extends to children who are born to people who are in the country unlawfully.
Although the majority opinion did not directly address “birth tourism,” it did clearly say birthright citizenship applies to the children of parents who are “unlawfully or temporarily present” in the country.
The “birth tourism” concern appeared in the dissents authored by both Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas.
Alito, in his dissent, wrote that he believed the majority’s opinion protects birthright citizenship to “the children of ‘birth tourists,’” though saying he does not not agree with the ruling.
Thomas wrote in his dissent that people have taken advantage of birthright citizenship through “birth tourism” and said there are companies that “collect large fees from wealthy foreigners to facilitate their trips to give birth in the United States.”
However, in the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that words like “temporary” and “lawful” do not appear in the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment: “For a simple reason: they did not matter.”
Ashley Feasley, a legal expert for the Immigration Law and Policy Initiative at The Catholic University of America, told EWTN News she believes the executive orders are “an attempt to undermine” the Supreme Court.
“Although they will almost certainly face legal challenge, in the interim they will place a profound burden on some of the most vulnerable migrants, pregnant women, and on the officers who work diligently to defend our borders,” she said.
“Requiring Department of Homeland Security officials to interrogate women, many of whom have legal visas, about their pregnancies, even turning them away from ports of entry without clearly defined criteria for doing so, risks harming both woman and unborn child and diverts DHS officers’ attention from the vital missions of border security and trade facilitation,” Feasley said.
Legal challenges have not yet been filed.
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The U.S. CC leaders continue to endanger us, our families and our children. They do the same in Western Europe.
• The crimes committed by criminals of foreign origin in Western Europe are actually underreported. The reason is that courts grant citizenship to illegal immigrants if they are born in the country.
• —The judges of the EU and the hierarchs and many priests of the CC are harming the native men and women, their families and their children.
• As an article in CWR points out, “Up to 22 European Union countries have pointed to THE RECENT MASS LEGALIZATION OF IMMIGRANTS CARRIED OUT IN SPAIN — AND BACKED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH — AS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE CURRENT MIGRATION CRISIS.
MEANWHILE, A RECENT SPANISH COURT RULING INVALIDATED THE PRACTICE OF SO-CALLED “HOT RETURNS” (IMMEDIATE, SUMMARY EXPULSIONS) IN CASES WHERE ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE COUNTRY WAS MADE BY SWIMMING, AS OCCURRED ON JULY 31” see https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2026/08/03/spanish-bishops-president-the-invasion-of-ceuta-is-a-test-demography-is-a-weapon/
• —Thus, in Germany, Abdul Ballout, the 21-year-old Muslim man who ploughed a vehicle into an LGTBQ+ Pride Parade in Berlin on July 23, 2026, killing one and injuring 29 was born in Germany of Lebanese parents so he is reported as German, not as an immigrant.
•
• —He had recently “graduated” from a de-radicalization program of the German government.
• See
• https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16006407/Lebanese-German-ISIS-terrorist-ploughed-Pride-parade-killed.html
•
• –The same is happening in the U.S. The court system grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., which includes thousands and thousands of anchor babies and birth tourism.
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• The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision with Justices Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch dissenting, used the 14th amendment to justify this.
•
• But as the dissenters pointed out, the amendment’s intention was to protect the rights of blacks freed after the Civil War, who were long time residents in the U.S.. It was not intended to apply to foreigners who are born here from foreign parents and birth tourism and anchor pregnancies.
• —Justice Thomas, joined by Gorsuch, argued in a lengthy dissent that the 14th Amendment was intended only for those with permanent domicile and no foreign allegiance, claiming the majority “devalues” citizenship. Justice Alito, in a separate dissent, called the ruling a “serious mistake” and warned it encourages “birth tourism” and illegal immigration.
•
• —No wonder the Pope talks the talk but in his own state illegal aliens are severely punished. See this
• Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties for Illegal Aliens Crossing its Border
• https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/16/vatican-promises-stiff-penalties-for-illegal-aliens-crossing-its-border/
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Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC)
Another parasitic organization.
The 14th amendment says what it says. SCOTUS reaffirmed it. That would finish it for anyone who respects the rule of law. Anyone who is pro life and values babies after birth also values the ones born on US soil.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution also said what it said.
Oh sweet summer child, that one was overturned by the 19th amendment not a presidential tantrum.
“All language is subject to construction”.
Yours is twisted logic, suzanne
I realize logic seems hard to understand for the emotionally reactive.
CLINIC is a group of leftists with legal backgrounds who promote a political agenda. They wrap themselves around the “flag” of “Catholicism” to deceive, extort money from unsuspecting Catholics and promote notions that advance an extreme leftist political agenda. No orthodox Catholic ought to be taken in by them. They get funding from CCHD and the USCCB and that’s why fewer Catholics have much trust in our bishops here in the USA.
The USCCB should consider this analogical idea: Anyone who wishes to become a bishop will become one.
As long as they are CCP affiliated, already true.
meiron: I’m going to steal that one (with your imprimatur, of course!).
The criticism from CLINIC and the bishops’ decision to review the order show why legal changes affecting citizenship need careful public explanation, not just political framing. The practical questions are likely to matter most: which families could be affected, what implementation guidance agencies receive, and how challenges in court may change the outcome. Continued monitoring is useful because the wording of an order, its enforcement, and its eventual legal status can diverge significantly. Clear timelines and accessible summaries would help readers follow those distinctions without reducing a complex issue to slogans.
Please read this book:
The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon – The New York Times Bestseller Exposing Mass Migration as a National Security Threat
by Peter Schweizer (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Coup-American-Foreign-Immigration-ebook/dp/B0FGDL1HYH
—From the description: “Our debates about immigration revolve around what happens with immigrants once they arrive. We need to start talking about who is sending them and why. For decades, establishment elites sold us the story of immigration as a compassionate renewal of the American Dream within a harmonious melting pot.
But beneath that narrative lies a different reality: Mass migration has morphed into the most powerful political weapon ever aimed at the United States—one engineered by elites at home and aided by adversaries abroad. Now Peter Schweizer, the bestselling investigative journalist of our time, is blowing the lid off this whole series of schemes.
Backed by years of forensic fieldwork and a trove of confidential documents and intercepted communications—linking political leaders, global NGOs, and even drug cartels—Schweizer detonates a political shock wave eclipsing his past bombshells, revelations that have sparked FBI probes and bipartisan reforms.
Urgent, shocking, and overflowing with national security implications, The Invisible Coup makes America’s greatest political threat visible for all to see—and solve.”
—This very well researched book by Peter Schweitzer exposes, among other things, how Communist China uses U.S. law to get millions of Chinese babies who are U.S. citizens from Chinese birth tourism and who are brought back to China, raised there, and in the future will impact even our elections as “American Citizens.”
This “author” was thoroughly discredited after his 2015 tome trashing the Clintons with lies and fabricated “facts”. The claim that China is gonna hack our elections with babies isn’t supported by facts and wouldn’t be possible to scale anyway due to human biology, Trumps delusions not with standing.
Ok, Boomer. You know that just because you hear something on NPR that doesn’t necessarily make it true. I mean, you’re defending the Clintons 🙄.
Again you seem to be attempting humor? You may want to put that energy into vetting sources because comedy ain’t your jam brother.