The brief, co-authored with U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and others, was submitted as the justices prepare to hear challenges to Trump’s executive order limiting automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to certain noncitizen parents.
The Court agreed in December to take up the issue, which turns on the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Cruz and Jordan argue that the clause has been misread for more than a century and does not confer citizenship based solely on birth within U.S. territory.
In their filing, they contend that “‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ must mean something quite different from ‘subject to the laws thereof,’” asserting that allegiance to the United States — not mere physical presence — is the constitutional touchstone.
The legislators warn that a broad interpretation of birthright citizenship undermines national sovereignty and creates incentives for what they describe as large-scale “birth tourism,” citing academic works, media reports, and other sources.
The brief claims that current doctrine allows “hostile nations” to exploit U.S. citizenship rules, language that echoes arguments advanced by the Trump administration in lower courts.
Trump has made the issue a signature priority of his second term.
Shortly after returning to office in January 2025, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies not to recognize citizenship for certain children born to parents who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily. Multiple federal judges blocked the order, and appellate courts declined to reinstate it, setting the stage for Supreme Court review.
The President’s statements about Cruz add a political dimension to the case.
Speaking this week at an event in Washington with Cruz present, Trump described the senator as a “brilliant legal mind” and joked that a Cruz nomination to the Supreme Court would win unanimous Senate approval because “they want to get him the hell out,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
Cruz responded, echoing the same language, in a statement reported by The Texan News. “My answer is not only no, but hell no,” he reportedly said.
Trump previously included Cruz on lists of potential Supreme Court nominees during the 2020 campaign. Cruz, a former Supreme Court law clerk and Texas solicitor general, has argued cases before the Court and has built much of his career around constitutional litigation and judicial nominations.
Cruz has also repeatedly said he does not want the job. After being named as a possible nominee in 2020, he said, “it’s not the desire of my heart,” explaining that he preferred to remain in the Senate and “fight to nominate and confirm” justices rather than become one himself, according to remarks reported at the time.
Days after these comments, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and was ultimately replaced by incumbent Amy Coney Barrett.
Justice Samuel Alito, one of the Court’s oldest members, has not ruled out retirement, raising the possibility of another vacancy during Trump’s term, according to prior reporting from The Dallas Express. Any opening would immediately intensify speculation over successors, particularly figures already aligned with the administration’s legal agenda.
