USCCB clarifies after birthright citizenship brief stirs controversy
"[T]he brief does not urge the Court to decide the case on the basis of Catholic doctrine."
The U.S. bishops’ conference told its members this week that a legal brief on birthright citizenship did not claim that “that every democratic polity must adopt” a birthright citizenship policy “to satisfy moral standards.”
The clarification came in a March 2 memo issued to bishops, after controversy over a February amicus brief filed by the USCCB in a lawsuit challenging a 2025 Trump executive order that would change the country’s birthright citizenship policies.
Critics argued that the brief had asked the Supreme Court to apply religious teaching in its decision, and had presented Catholic teaching in an incoherent manner.
But a memo to bishops from William Quinn, general counsel for the USCCB, said that the brief instead relies on natural law to “show the harmony between our constitutional tradition and a moral vision of civic belonging.”
“The Court is asked to do what it always does: interpret and apply the Constitution,” said the memo, which was obtained by The Pillar after it was issued to bishops.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to deny birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. whose parents lack legal status or have only temporary legal status.
The executive order prompted multiple lawsuits and was blocked from taking effect until a ruling can be announced. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case next month.
The USCCB and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. (CLINIC) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in February, arguing in favor of maintaining birthright citizenship.
The brief cited the history of birthright citizenship, originating in Roman law, as well as court precedent in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, which specifies that individuals born in the United States are citizens.
“This history demonstrates that birthright citizenship is neither an innovation nor an aberration, but a deeply rooted principle of the Western legal tradition—one that the United States consciously embraced and constitutionalized in the wake of grave moral and legal failure,” the brief said.
It further argued that birthright citizenship is consistent with the Church’s teachings on the inherent dignity of every human being. Ending the practice, it said, would weaken families and risk leaving children stateless, thereby making them targets for violence, trafficking and exploitation.
The brief prompted controversy, with several online critics saying that its arguments were incoherent and inappropriate.
One columnist argued that the bishops were attempting to “frame the argument [about birthright citizenship] in starkly moral terms,” while a lawyer with ties to the GOP called the brief an effort to push the Supreme Court to “adopt Catholic theology in its constitutional adjudication.”
Quinn rejected these claims in his March 2 memo to the bishops.
“[T]he brief does not urge the Court to decide the case on the basis of Catholic doctrine. It urges the Court to apply the Constitution in light of its text, history, and precedent, and to recognize how the executive order threatens to produce de facto statelessness for children born here, an outcome inconsistent with the Citizenship Clause as interpreted by the Court,” he said.
“References to Catholic teaching do not supply a rule of decision for the Court; they explain the Conference’s reasons for participating and highlight the consonance between the American constitutional tradition and a broader moral understanding of the dignity of the child and the integrity of the family.”
Quinn said the legal argument advanced in the brief relies on “the text and original understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, the historical and comparative backdrop against which the Clause was adopted and later interpreted, and controlling precedent.”
The brief does note practical consequences of the executive order in question, he acknowledged, particularly damage to family unity and threats of stateless individuals. But noting those issues is part of the role of an amicus brief, he said: “to assist the Court with specialized perspective, historical synthesis, and real-world implications without displacing the Court’s constitutional reasoning.”
Quinn added that the brief “does not claim that every democratic polity must adopt jus soli to satisfy moral standards, nor does it reduce human dignity to citizenship status.”
“Rather, it explains how a constitutional rule recognizing membership at birth functions as a juridical safeguard of dignity already possessed, especially for children otherwise at risk of legal nonrecognition,” he said.
The U.S. bishops’ conference declined requests for comment from The Pillar.
That Mr. Quinn feels compelled to respond, and not the individual who wrote the brief, is an indication that in fact the criticisms were not baseless, and that the brief WAS saying not having birthright citizenship was immoral, something that would be news to most countries who do not have the birthright citizenship regimen America does.
They just can't stick the landing, can they?