Michael Baumgartner Aligns Himself with the White Nationalist Legal Campaign Against Birthright Citizenship
He signals his commitment to try again to overturn part of the 14th Amendment which was adopted to protect the citizenship rights of the children of freed slaves
Editor’s Note, July 1, 2026
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Barbara that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship remains the law of the land, as it has since 1868.
Michael Baumgartner tried his best to overturn that protection. He signed an amicus brief that was filed with the high court as it heard the case this spring. In signing the brief, he aligned himself with the white nationalist movement, whose supporters authored the document. After yesterday’s ruling, Baumgartner complained that the Court had maintained a “farcical notion” and said Congress should close the “loophole.” By his statements and actions, WA-5’s congressman continues to show that he is tone-deaf to legal precedent and the law, but fully receptive to white nationalist priorities, an agenda repudiated by the Court in its 6-3 decision.
The following article was first published here on Jerry LeClaire’s Substack as the Supreme Court was about to hear arguments. It details Baumgartner’s alignment with factions of the country that continue to work against the public good in their undemocratic efforts to purify America in their image.
By Grant Fredericks — The LeClaire Report
The Choice
The U.S. Supreme Court is about to consider one of the most significant constitutional cases in decades. Representative Michael Baumgartner is one of twenty-eight members of Congress, sixteen House Republicans and twelve Senate Republicans, most associated with the party’s far-right and hardline factions, who filed an amicus brief urging the Court to narrow the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship.1
An amicus curiae brief allows outside actors to insert arguments directly into a Supreme Court case, even though they are not parties to it. In this case, Baumgartner joined a coordinated congressional effort to support Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14160, which seeks to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are neither citizens nor lawful permanent residents. Children born to lawful permanent residents, aka green card holders, are not targeted by the order.2
The brief was authored by America First Legal Foundation, the legal organization co-founded by Stephen Miller. In this brief, AFL advances a theory of citizenship that rejects long-settled constitutional doctrine.3 That theory has circulated for years in white-nationalist and “Great Replacement” legal and intellectual circles, where birthright citizenship is framed as a threat to national identity and to white political dominance.4
By signing onto this brief, Baumgartner aligned himself with a legal movement whose authors, sources, and intellectual origins are rooted in white nationalist ideology, a movement that has long characterized birthright citizenship as a threat often referred to as “the browning of America.”5
The Backstop
Baumgartner’s most direct description of how immigration policy is being coordinated came in a closed Ripon Society panel attended by conservative donors and activists. Speaking about his assignment to the House Judiciary Committee, he told the audience it had been “fascinating to see how much the administration looks to House Judiciary Committee Republicans as a backstop for what they’re doing.”6
As an example, Baumgartner said Stephen Miller, who serves as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the administration’s lead official on immigration7, sought Judiciary Committee members out for a strategy discussion on immigration policy.8 He also said the very first dinner Pam Bondi held with her team was with Judiciary Committee members at the Department of Justice.9
Baumgartner did not describe these meetings as oversight or as efforts by Congress to check executive power; he described them as coordination, with the House Judiciary Committee positioned to support an agenda set inside the White House. The term he used, “backstop,” is revealing. A backstop reinforces an existing plan. It does not constrain it.
Taken together, Baumgartner’s account describes a coordinated sequence involving the White House, the House Judiciary Committee, and the Department of Justice (DOJ), inverting the normal separation of powers and placing congressional oversight and prosecutorial independence in a supporting role to executive policy.
The Authors
The amicus brief Baumgartner signed was authored by America First Legal (AFL), a legal nonprofit founded by Stephen Miller and Gene Hamilton in April 2021.10 AFL has advanced immigration theories that had failed repeatedly in courts but had circulated for years inside a network of lawyers, think tanks, and advocacy groups rooted in white nationalist ideology.
Its birthright citizenship theory did not originate in the executive branch or Congress; it was incubated in a parallel legal ecosystem that had long rejected the settled meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
That ecosystem is well documented. Miller’s role in it predates AFL. In 2019, leaked emails published by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) showed Miller routinely sharing material from VDARE, a white nationalist publication, and promoting The Camp of the Saints, a novel revered in white supremacist circles for its portrayal of nonwhite immigration as the cause of civilizational collapse.11 The SPLC described Miller’s communications as reflecting open white nationalism12, prompting more than 100 members of Congress to call for his resignation in Trump’s first term.13
Gene Hamilton, America First Legal’s other co-founder, provides the institutional bridge. As a senior Justice Department official in the first Trump administration, Hamilton worked closely with Miller on immigration enforcement, including family separation.14 He later authored the Department of Justice chapter in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 202515, while continuing to lead litigation efforts through America First Legal.
The brief’s co-filing partners deepen that picture. Boyden Gray PLLC, a law firm which joined the filing16, is led by Jonathan Berry, an alumnus of the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship.17 ADF is designated as an extremist organization by the SPLC.18 Berry also authored Project 2025’s Department of Labor chapter19, linking the brief to a coordinated effort to apply the same legal framework across the federal government.
The intellectual origins of this theory go even further back, to institutions like the Claremont Institute and its Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, which has promoted a “total allegiance” theory of citizenship drawn from nineteenth-century nativist movements.20 That theory treats children born in the United States to disfavored groups as inherently suspect, a logic historically used to justify Chinese exclusion, Japanese internment, and religious loyalty tests. The brief draws on that same tradition.
These actors are not united by party affiliation or policy preference. They share a premise: that demographic change itself is a threat to be managed through law. Within that framework, citizenship functions as a gatekeeping tool rather than a birthright, and the Constitution becomes an obstacle to be overcome by reinterpreting key clauses.
Only against that background does the brief’s fixation on “birth tourism” make sense. Not as a factual assessment, but as a rhetorical device.
The Distraction
Section VIII of the amicus brief argues that the lower courts’ reading of the Fourteenth Amendment would undermine national sovereignty and security, and it builds that argument almost entirely around claims about Chinese nationals traveling to the United States to give birth.21
The brief’s central figure is an estimate that as many as 1.5 million Chinese nationals have obtained U.S. citizenship through birth over roughly the last fifteen years, presented as a national-security threat involving foreign manipulation of American citizenship.22 That figure does not come from federal data. The brief takes it from Peter Schweizer’s book The Invisible Coup, which builds the estimate from Chinese-government figures and one academic’s higher projection.23 The United States keeps no record of parental nationality on birth certificates, a point Schweizer himself concedes, so the number rests on foreign estimates the brief never independently verifies.
The birth-tourism frame the brief adopts is not new. It is a longstanding project of the organized restrictionist movement, including the Center for Immigration Studies, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designated an anti-immigrant hate group in 2016.24 CIS was founded by John Tanton, whom the SPLC has documented as a white nationalist, and for years circulated material from VDARE and other extremist outlets.25
The brief amplifies the most alarming version of these claims while ignoring independent estimates. The Niskanen Center found that actual birth tourism accounts for fewer than 2,000 births per year once long-term U.S. residents are excluded.26 The Pew Research Center estimates that at least 250,000 children are born each year in the United States to undocumented parents, families who live here, work here, and are raising American children.27 The Fourteenth Amendment was written to ensure that children born on American soil would not be denied citizenship based on the status of their parents. It guaranteed that belonging would be determined by birth rather than bloodline. Executive Order 14160 breaks that guarantee for roughly a quarter of a million children each year, set against the fewer than 2,000 birth tourists the brief invokes to justify it. The ratio of actual impact to rhetorical focus is roughly 125 to 1.28
The legal theory the brief advances draws no distinction between a child born in a rented apartment used for a birth tourism operation and a child born to parents with long-term lawful status, such as those holding Temporary Protected Status or H-1B visas, who have lived and worked in the same community for years. Under the “total allegiance” standard the brief proposes, both are denied citizenship on the same terms.29 The focus on birth tourism conceals the real scope of what the brief proposes. A quarter of a million children born to working families become a line in a national-security argument, while the policy that threatens them gathers momentum.
Baumgartner furthers the moment himself. At an August 2025 Republican fundraising dinner in Spokane, known as “Paint It Red,” he invoked slavery while praising Ulysses S. Grant. “And one of my absolute favorite things about Ulysses S. Grant is that he didn’t have any money, and he got some slaves because his wife was a slave-owning family, and he gave up his slaves, while poor, which would be like, you know, value-wise, like giving up your house.”30 The remark treats enslaved people as a unit of property whose surrender measures Grant’s virtue, not as human beings held in bondage. It is the same operation that runs through the brief: reduce people to abstractions, and the moral cost of what you are advocating disappears. Baumgartner’s praise of President Grant was also imprecise. Grant emancipated one enslaved man, William Jones, while at least four enslaved people owned by his wife’s family continued to labor in the household for several years afterward.31
The Last Resort
On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14160 on his first day back in office.32 The order was immediately challenged in federal courts across the country. Federal courts across the country blocked its enforcement, finding that it conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.33
Rather than allowing the normal appellate process to proceed, the administration sought Supreme Court review before any court of appeals had ruled. The Court granted certiorari before judgment.34 That procedural step is typically reserved for cases involving genuine national emergencies or irreconcilable conflicts in the lower courts. No circuit split had emerged when the administration sought review.35
It was at that point that the amicus brief Baumgartner signed entered the case. The brief did not introduce new evidence or respond to the courts’ reasoning. It asked the Court to adopt the same theory that lower courts had already rejected, repackaged with the birth-tourism narrative examined above.
This is where Baumgartner’s own description of the Judiciary Committee as a “backstop” becomes operational. The coordination he described extended to supporting a last-ditch legal effort to rescue an executive action that had already been found unconstitutional. Baumgartner’s willing signature did not advance a live legal question. It aligned him with a failed theory kept alive by the white nationalist legal movement that produced the brief.
The Record
The amicus curiae brief Baumgartner signed was filed with the Supreme Court under his name as a sitting member of Congress.36 By signing as an amicus, he asked the Court to give weight to the arguments America First Legal advanced in deciding the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. That act carries responsibility. A member of Congress who appears as amicus is not registering a vote or issuing a press statement. He is vouching for the contents of a Supreme Court brief.
Baumgartner therefore faces only two explanations. Either he read the filing and endorsed its arguments, including its sources and framing, or he signed a Supreme Court brief without reviewing it. There is no third option that preserves independence, diligence, or credibility.
Regardless of which explanation applies, what remains is the fact of his signature. It appears on a document produced by a network with documented ties to white nationalist ideology. It appears on a brief that advances language and theories drawn from that tradition. It appears on a filing that asks the Supreme Court to narrow who counts as American at birth. This is the record Baumgartner has now created for himself. It is what his constituents will judge him by.
Endnotes
1. Amicus Curiae Brief of Members of Congress, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365 (U.S., filed Jan. 27, 2026); full list of amici (Senate and House) on page 2, Interest of Amici Curiae. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392875/20260128114151284_Birthright%20Citizenship%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%201.27.26.pdf
2. Exec. Order No. 14,160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” 90 Fed. Reg. 8,449 (Jan. 20, 2025). https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/
3. Amicus Curiae Brief, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365, authored by America First Legal Foundation; see signature page. America First Legal Foundation, “America First Legal Files U.S. Supreme Court Brief on Behalf of U.S. Senators and Representatives Supporting President Trump’s Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship,” press release. https://aflegal.org/press-release/america-first-legal-files-u-s-supreme-court-brief-on-behalf-of-u-s-senators-and-representatives-supporting-president-trumps-executive-order-on-birthright-citizenship/
4. Anti-Defamation League, “The Great Replacement: An Explainer.” https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/great-replacement-explainer
5. ADL, “Sovereign American Project” (2021). https://www.adl.org/resources/report/sovereign-american-project
6. Rep. Baumgartner, Ripon Society panel, “Effort to Reach Agreement on Reconciliation,” on or about May 13, 2025.
(11:40 for the introduction of Baumgartner; 14:40 for his comments on the backstop, Miller, and Bondi).
7. White House, “President Trump Announces Senior White House Staff Appointments.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-trump-announces-senior-white-house-staff-appointments/
8. Ripon Society panel (see endnote 6).
9. Ripon Society panel (see endnote 6).
10. America First Legal Foundation, “About.” https://aflegal.org/about/
11. SPLC Hatewatch, “Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails,” Nov. 13, 2019. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/13/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails
12. SPLC Hatewatch (see endnote 11).
13. Rep. Don Beyer, joint letter, “Members of Congress Call for Miller’s Resignation.” https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4647
14. American Oversight FOIA, “Emails Reveal DOJ Officials’ Close Working Relationship with Stephen Miller.” https://americanoversight.org/emails-reveal-doj-officials-close-working-relationship-with-stephen-miller-at-height-of-family-separations/
15. Gene Hamilton, “Department of Justice,” in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Heritage Foundation, 2023), ch. 17. https://www.project2025.org/policy/
16. Amicus Curiae Brief of Members of Congress, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365, signature and counsel pages (Boyden Gray PLLC, counsel). https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392875/20260128114151284_Birthright%20Citizenship%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%201.27.26.pdf
17. ADF, “Blackstone Legal Fellowship”; Jonathan Berry official House witness bio. https://adflegal.org/training/blackstone/
18. SPLC Extremist Files, “Alliance Defending Freedom.” https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/alliance-defending-freedom/
19. Jonathan Berry, “Department of Labor and Related Agencies,” in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Heritage Foundation, 2023), ch. 18. https://www.project2025.org/policy/
20. Brief of Amicus Curiae the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365 (advancing the allegiance reading of the Citizenship Clause). https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392804/20260127131459707_25-365%20TSAC%20CCJ.pdf
21. Amicus Curiae Brief of Members of Congress, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365, Section VIII, pp. 30-31. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392875/20260128114151284_Birthright%20Citizenship%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%201.27.26.pdf
22. Amicus Curiae Brief of Members of Congress, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365, Section VIII, pp. 30-31 (the 750,000 to 1.5 million estimate). https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392875/20260128114151284_Birthright%20Citizenship%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%201.27.26.pdf
23. Peter Schweizer, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon (HarperCollins, 2026), p. 78. The brief cites this source in Section VIII.
24. SPLC Extremist Files, “Center for Immigration Studies.” https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/center-immigration-studies/
25. SPLC Extremist Files, “John Tanton” (https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/john-tanton/); SPLC Hatewatch, “More Than An Occasional Crank: 2,012 Times the Center for Immigration Studies Circulated White Nationalist Content” (https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/more-occasional-crank-2012-times-center-immigration-studies-circulated-white-nationalist/).
26. Jeremy L. Neufeld, “Birth Tourism Revisited,” Niskanen Center, March 18, 2020. https://www.niskanencenter.org/birth-tourism-revisited/
27. Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, Pew Research Center (births to unauthorized-immigrant parents). https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2018/11/01/birthrates-among-u-s-immigrants-and-their-children/
28. Author’s calculation: 250,000 (Pew Research Center) divided by 2,000 (Niskanen Center) is approximately 125 to 1.
29. Amicus Curiae Brief of Members of Congress, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365 (arguing the Citizenship Clause requires complete jurisdiction and total allegiance). https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392875/20260128114151284_Birthright%20Citizenship%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%201.27.26.pdf
30. Michael Baumgartner, remarks at “Paint It Red” fundraising dinner, Davenport Grand Hotel, Spokane, WA, August 17, 2025. Transcribed by the author from an audio recording of the event. Independently documented in Emry Dinman, “Baumgartner ’paints it red’ with re-election fundraiser alongside guest speaker, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan,” The Spokesman-Review, August 17, 2025. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/aug/17/baumgartner-paints-it-red-with-re-election-fundrai/
31. “William Jones,” National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/people/william-jones.htm); “The Formerly Enslaved Household of the Grant Family,” White House Historical Association (https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-formerly-enslaved-household-of-the-grant-family); “Myths & Misunderstandings: Grant as a Slaveholder,” American Civil War Museum (https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-grant-slaveholder/).
32. Exec. Order No. 14,160 (see endnote 2).
33. Reuters, “US Supreme Court May Rule Allowing Enforcement of Trump Birthright Citizenship,” June 27, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-may-rule-allowing-enforcement-trump-birthright-citizenship-2025-06-27/
34. SCOTUS docket, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-365.html
35. SCOTUS docket (see endnote 34).
36. Amicus Curiae Brief of Members of Congress, Trump v. Barbara, No. 25-365, cover page. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/392875/20260128114151284_Birthright%20Citizenship%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%201.27.26.pdf
Thank you for this well documented article. It needs to be broadcasted - Baumgartner is a white supremacist working within the Judiciary Committee of Congress to thwart the Constitution.
Shameful the prejudices that come out of this MAGA group. Vote his out!!