A Respectful Appeal to Preserve Birthright Citizenship While Restoring Its Reconstruction Memory
American Civil Liberties Union
National Legal Department
125 Broad Street
New York, NY 10004
Attn: Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director
Attn: Cecillia Wang, National Legal Director
Re: Barbara v. Donald J. Trump / Trump v. Barbara — Birthright Citizenship, the Chattel Children, and the Original Federal Citizens
Dear ACLU Counsel and Leadership:
1. A Respectful Word From One You Once Helped Defend. I write with respect, gratitude, and constitutional urgency.
My name is Ted Hayes. In October 1985, two homeless military veterans, Wendell Grady and Walter Banister, and I were prosecuted for trespassing after the closure of Justiceville, the original, trend-setting, politically oriented (non-partisan electoral) homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles, Skid Row.
We were found innocent by a twelve-person jury based upon what I have long understood and espoused as the Defense of Necessity — the argument that people with nowhere lawful to sleep or dwell should not be criminalized for existing on public property when society has provided no meaningful alternative.
My recollection and record is that the ACLU of Southern California, along with allied legal counsel, stood in defense of us in that matter. I have never forgotten that, as it dramatically changed the scope of homelessness on many levels, locally, throughout the Ninth Circuit Court District, and nationally.
That 1985 case was not merely about trespass. It was about human necessity. It was about whether homeless persons, including military veterans, could be punished simply because they had no place to go.
In later years, the Defense of Necessity became the foundation the Ninth Circuit wrestled with in similar questions in Jones v. City of Los Angeles and Martin v. City of Boise. Today, the national homelessness crisis continues, now intensified by public concern over encampments, enforcement, and President Trump’s July 24, 2025, Executive Order addressing homelessness, crime, and disorder on America’s streets.
So I write to you as one who has stood with the ACLU before in a matter concerning existence, necessity, public space, punishment, and constitutional dignity.
Now, in Barbara v. Donald J. Trump, the ACLU stands in another case involving birth, existence, legal status, vulnerability, and constitutional protection.
That is why I write.
2. Barbara Must Not Become Another Case Where the Original People Disappear
I understand that the ACLU and its co-counsel represent Barbara and others challenging President Trump’s Executive Order on birthright citizenship. I understand that your case seeks to protect children born on American soil under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, “All persons born…”, and federal citizenship law.
That defense is important. But I respectfully submit that there is a greater challenge and danger.
This case is being framed almost entirely as an immigration case. It is being argued around the children of noncitizen parents, executive power, “subject to the jurisdiction,” and the modern public meaning of birthright citizenship.
All of that matters. But beneath it lies the older constitutional question:
“Why was national birthright citizenship constitutionally secured in the first place?”
Before America decides the citizenship status of the child of a foreigner, America must remember why the child of a freedman had to be constitutionally secured in citizenship by birth.
3. The Chattel Children Are the Original Federal Citizenship Question
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment were born from chattel slavery, civil war, emancipation, forced illiteracy, denied personhood, and the urgent need to secure the citizenship and civil rights of the formerly enslaved and their children.
Those living heirs — whom I call the chattel children — are not incidental to this matter.
They are not merely a footnote in a Supreme Court or any other court case.
They are not merely one group among many under a general universal rule.
They are the original remedial people whose constitutional condition necessitated the Citizenship Clause.
If Barbara wins while the chattel children remain unnamed, then the ACLU may protect one class of children while unintentionally helping erase the original constitutional children. That would be a painful irony of ironies in the history of all human civilization, according to HR #194
4. If Barbara Wins, We Can Still Lose
If the ACLU wins, Barbara, birthright citizenship may be preserved in its broad modern form. But the chattel children may still lose by invisibility if the victory speaks only of immigrants, noncitizen parents, and universal citizenship while failing to name the Reconstruction beneficiaries.
If President Trump wins, the chattel children may lose by virtue of their vulnerability if the Court narrows the Citizenship Clause without clearly protecting the original federal citizens whose national existence was first secured through Reconstruction.
And if the nation proceeds without educating the chattel children, we lose by ignorance.
Therefore, this case presents a danger either way unless the original federal citizens are brought into the frame.
5. ACLU, You Know the Meaning of Necessity
In 1985, the question was necessary: could homeless men be punished for remaining where they were when society had provided no real place to go?
Today, the question is constitutional necessity: can the nation decide birthright citizenship while the original federal citizens remain uninformed about the very citizenship structure born from their ancestors’ chains?
Being 99% government and violence forced illiteracy for 245 years at the time, the chattel slaves and their children did not write the Remedial, Federal, Citizenship Civil Rights Act of 1866 legislated to them. They did not write the Fourteenth Amendment.
They didn’t even ask for permission, i.e., Article 1, Sec 8, the portal to come into America, nor even become citizens, not knowing what was occurring around them, except for a few, such as Frederick Douglas et al.
To excuse the usurpation of the 14th Amendment, there is an ugly canard rumored that the US, American black person(s) are no longer interested in their Civil Rights, being obsessed with being on welfare, lazy, partying, fighting, not interested in education, and playing sports, etc.
Albeit, the fact of the matter is, American Africans did not sneak in the night, or break through unprotected breaches in the border barriers of a sovereign country, nor falsify identity documents, nor take unfair advantage of other people’s rights in the name of them not using those rights.
Rather, during the 245 years of chattel slavery, African Americans born in this land were denied by law and upon punishment of beatings, even death, should any of them were caught literatizing themselves or being taught; and as fedeal citizens, for decades systemactically under Jim Crowism were denied literacy by law and force of KKK violence.
Therefore, naturally, these Americans had no sense of, nor desire for, literacy and, subsequently, were unable to discover their true US Constitutional Identity and powers of authority, and hence, were taken advantage of by foriegners.
It’s similar to the sentiment of American pioneers’ “Manifest Destiny” policy, because the Indigenous Peoples were not using their lands “resourcefully”, they were justified in taking them.
So, though the laws were there in legal documentation, their Subject Beneficiaries, the right Inheritors of the Promissory Note, were not aware of them, and from 1865 through 1954 to 57, around the Brown v. Board, mysteriously, the KKK policies of the Democratic Party, via Jim Crow laws, actively, with a vehemence, waged resistance to federal citizens becoming literate. What was so wrong and frightening about federal citizens being literate?
But the laws were written for them.
There were no illegal immigrants, etc., not even mentioned except when then President Andres Johnson did so in his veto letter to the US Senate stating that immigrants must enter citizenship via Article. I, Sec. 8 portal. The remedy was secured for them. The inheritance legally belongs to them.
Now, TODAY, for the first time in American history, their descendants have sufficient literacy, communication capacity, and civic access to begin to understand what was written for them.
That is why this case should not proceed without them.
6. To the ACLU, NAACP/LDF, and Black Legal Advocates
I write this also with respect to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Black civil-rights lawyers, race-law scholars, Black law students, and amici on both sides of Barbara v. Trump.
The defense of birthright citizenship is important. But a deeper historical wound must also be named, even under HR #194.
The lack of constitutional knowledge among the chattel children is not accidental. It is part of the corpus delicti — the body of evidence — leading back to slavery, anti-literacy laws, Jim Crow, and the long failure to enforce the remedial federal laws written after Reconstruction.
For 245 years, the enslaved were denied literacy, not merely by custom but by law, punishment, violence, and terror. They were denied the very tools by which a people could read, understand, organize, and claim law.
Then Jim Crow continued the suppression by other means.
Therefore, when federal citizens today suffer disproportionate homelessness, youth violence, school failure, family breakdown, civic disorientation, incarceration, and social despair, these should not be treated merely as “Black pathology.” They are forensic evidence of a long constitutional failure.
The forensics led back to the first days of Reconstruction.
Had the remedial federal laws been properly enforced, defended, taught, and honored, much of this present social disaster might have been prevented or greatly reduced. But the Executive has too often failed to enforce those laws.
Congress has too often failed to defend and teach them. The Judiciary has too often ruled in ways that narrowed, weakened, or drifted from their original remedial purpose.
This is why Barbara must not be reduced to an immigrant-rights case. It must also be argued as a Reconstruction-memory case.
If the ACLU, NAACP/LDF, Black legal advocates, and amici defend the Citizenship Clause without naming the chattel children as the original federal citizenship emergency, then the case may preserve the clause while continuing the drift away from its original remedial center.
That drift is itself part of the problem.
Over time, courts, scholars, advocates, and public officials have treated birthright citizenship increasingly as a universal immigration doctrine, while the central people whose chains, forced illiteracy, and denied personhood made the doctrine constitutionally necessary have remained largely uninformed of their own legal identity.
This is how people can be protected in text but lost in practice.
The ACLU knows civil liberties. The NAACP/LDF knows Black constitutional struggle. Black law students and scholars know the burden of carrying law into a future still haunted by slavery’s aftermath.
Therefore, what civil-liberties effort could be more fitting than helping the chattel children finally understand the federal citizenship laws written for their actual freedom?
7. The Unification Clause for the Moratorium
This Moratorium is not a partisan demand. It is a unifying constitutional measure for the whole Union.
The Executive Branch has not fully enforced the remedial federal laws. Congress has not fully defended, taught, or renewed them.
The Judiciary has too often ruled against them, narrowed them, or drifted away from their original Reconstruction purpose.
Therefore, all three branches share responsibility.
This matter does not belong only to President Trump, Barbara, the ACLU, the NAACP/LDF, Congress, or the Supreme Court. It belongs to the Union itself.
In 2008, through H. Res. 194, Congress issued a national apology for slavery and Jim Crow. That apology was Part One.
This Moratorium is Part Two.
is sincere, it must produce fruit worthy of repentance. The peaceful, non-monetary constitutional education of the federal citizens — the chattel children — is such fruit.
This is a long-awaited moment of gratitude, reconciliation, redemption, and national healing in this Christian nation under GOD. It is also a fitting act for America’s 250th Declaration season — a new birth beginning for America’s true Golden Age.
Before America can rightly celebrate its greatness, it must acknowledge that the enslaved American African ancestors, upon whose unwilling backs so much of this nation was built, helped create the platform from which citizens, immigrants, corporations, foreign governments, and global commerce have benefited.
Therefore, all interested parties should be able to unite around this measure: President Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate leadership, the Supreme Court, the ACLU, NAACP/LDF, Barbara’s legal advocates, amici on both sides, immigrants, legal and illegal, corporations, churches, civil-rights organizations, foreign nations, and the American people.
Federal citizens are against nobody.
This is not anti-immigrant.
It is not anti-Trump.
It is not anti-Barbara.
It is not anti-Republican.
It is not anti-Democrat.
It is not anti-ACLU.
It is not anti-NAACP.
It is not anti-business.
It is not anti-world.
It is pro-truth, pro-Union, pro-Reconstruction, pro-constitutional memory, and pro-national healing.
The world once cried out to America, “Black Lives Matter.” Now the answer to that cry has come in its highest constitutional form: American Black lives must be awakened to their identity in the Constitution itself.
Identity in the United States Constitution is the most fundamental matter of American Black life, because lawful identity is the foundation upon which liberty, responsibility, dignity, self-government, and actual freedom stand.
The question, then, is simple: Who could rightly oppose this?
Who could oppose a peaceful national effort to teach the chattel children what Lincoln proclaimed, what the Civil Rights Act of 1866 secured, what the Fourteenth Amendment constitutionalized, and what Reconstruction intended?
Who could oppose a non-monetary thank offering — first to GOD, the Central Person appealed to in the Declaration of Independence, and then to the federal citizens in honor of their ancestors’ unwilling backs?
Who could oppose America finally helping the children of forced illiteracy understand the laws written for their actual freedom?
If any party opposes this Moratorium, the question must be asked plainly:
Federal citizens are against nobody — but are you against federal citizens receiving recognition, education, gratitude, and constitutional restoration?
This is the rare measure capable of uniting Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, immigrants and citizens, courts and Congress, churches and civil-rights organizations, business and labor, America and the world.
It does not ask anyone to surrender lawful rights.
It does not seek revenge.
It does not demand monetary reparations in the commonly misunderstood sense.
It asks only that the nation pause long enough to educate, recognize, and honor the original federal citizens whose ancestors’ suffering made Reconstruction citizenship necessary.
If America truly seeks a Golden Age, let it begin with this: gratitude to GOD, honor to the chattel-slave ancestors, fulfillment of H. Res. 194, constitutional education for their children, and a united national commitment that the chattel children shall be unnamed, uninformed, and invisible no more.
8. Protect Barbara Without Erasing Us
I respectfully ask the ACLU and its co-counsel to consider the following:
First, publicly acknowledge that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment were rooted first in the constitutional restoration of the formerly enslaved and their children.
Second, include the chattel children — the original federal citizens — in your public framing of Barbara, so birthright citizenship is not presented only as an immigrant-rights issue.
Third, support a pause, reframing, supplemental briefing, amicus attention, or public education effort that allows the original federal citizens to understand what is at stake.
Fourth, avoid any argument that treats the Fourteenth Amendment as merely a universal immigration instrument detached from Reconstruction, slavery, emancipation, and federal citizenship.
Fifth, help turn this litigation into a national civic education moment, not only for immigrant families, but also for the descendants of those once denied personhood and then constitutionally restored.
9. This Is Not Anti-Immigrant
This request is not anti-immigrant.
It is not anti-Barbara.
It is not pro-Trump.
It is not hostile to the children you represent.
Rather, it is a plea that no child’s claim be defended by erasing the first children for whom the citizenship remedy was made necessary.
The chattel children do not seek to deny another child lawful protection.
We seek to prevent our own constitutional disappearance.
The nation of immigrants stands upon the backs of a people who did not immigrate. They were trafficked, enslaved, forced into illiteracy, worked as property, and then constitutionally restored through federal remedial law.
If America now argues birthright citizenship for immigrant children while leaving the chattel children ignorant of their own birthright, then the civil-liberties movement will have defended the branch while neglecting the root.
10. A Final Appeal to the ACLU’s Own History
The ACLU has often stood where unpopular, vulnerable, or misunderstood people needed constitutional defense.
In 1985, when homeless men were charged as trespassers for seeking a place to survive after Justiceville, the defense of necessity helped a jury understand that existence itself should not be criminalized.
Now the ACLU has an opportunity to help the nation understand a higher necessity:
The necessity of constitutional memory.
The necessity of Reconstruction truth.
The necessity of naming the original federal citizens before the Citizenship Clause is once again argued over their heads.
Please do not win Barbara in a way that leaves the chattel children invisible.
Please do not allow the Fourteenth Amendment to be defended without naming why it had to be written.
Please help ensure that the children of immigrants are defended without burying the constitutional identity of the children of the freedmen.
Respectfully, the ACLU once helped defend my necessity.
Now I ask you to recognize ours.
Respectfully submitted,
Ted Hayes
Justiceville / EXODUS II
Mr. Citizen Patriot
American Federal Citizen Advocate
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