KKL and Right to Democracy File Supreme Court Amicus Brief Representing Officials from U.S. Territories

Together with Right to Democracy, KKL filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of 21 current and former elected officials and judges (including Governors, Members of Congress, and Chief Justices) from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.

Amici filed this brief in Trump v. Barbara to urge the Court to reject the Executive Branch’s attempt to unilaterally redefine the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. The brief draws on 125 years of experience from the U.S. Territories, where the political branches have incorrectly insisted that citizenship exists solely at Congress’s discretion and can be restricted, modified, or even withdrawn at will. The brief traces this history from the racist origins of the Insular Cases—where the Executive Branch sought to deny citizenship to people in island territories it deemed racially and culturally inferior—to the ongoing prosecution of eleven non-citizen U.S. nationals American Samoans in Alaska who face felony charges and up to ten years’ incarceration simply for exercising the right to vote.

KKL lawyers Paul M. Krieger and Patricio G. Martínez Llompart authored the amicus brief, with able assistance from KKL analyst Drew Hopkins, in partnership with Neil C. Weare and Adi Martínez-Román of the Right to Democracy Project.