Ava DuVernay's '14th' doc confronts birthright citizenship fight
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- Ava DuVernay announced a new Netflix documentary titled "14th," examining the 14th Amendment's history, its protections for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, and its current legal battles under Trump — Netflix said Thursday it will release the film later this year.
- The project is a follow-up to DuVernay's 2016 documentary "13th" about the legacy of the 13th Amendment, and marks her return to nonfiction after directing "Selma" and "Origin."
- The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 during Reconstruction, nullified the 1857 Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford and established that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens.
- On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump signed an executive order heavily restricting birthright citizenship; the Supreme Court struck it down by a 6-3 vote in June.
- Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, calling citizenship "the right to have rights" and affirming the Framers' promise extended to "every free-born person in this land."
- Trump has vowed to continue contesting the ruling, posting on Truth Social that the decision was "a miscarriage of justice" that "will destroy America if they don't change their absolutely insane decision."
- DuVernay framed the film: "If 13th asked who gets caged, then 14th asks who gets counted… This is not a film about the past tense of freedom. I'm not interested in asking you to look back."
Why it matters: DuVernay's documentary arrives directly into an active constitutional fight: the Supreme Court's 6-3 rebuke of Trump's birthright citizenship order landed in June, and Trump has publicly vowed to keep contesting it. For Netflix, the release places a major filmmaker's reading of the 14th Amendment into the same news cycle where its interpretation is being litigated.
