The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship, ruling that children born in the United States remain citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status or whether they are in the country temporarily.
In a 6-3 decision, the court struck down Trump’s executive order, which sought to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born to parents who entered the country illegally or who were legally present on temporary visas.
The executive order, signed on Trump’s first day back in office, never took effect after multiple lower courts blocked it as unconstitutional.
Court Cites 14th Amendment
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote, the Associated Press reported. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
The court concluded that the amendment, along with longstanding federal law, protects birthright citizenship except in limited circumstances, such as children born to foreign diplomats.
Longstanding Precedent Upheld
The ruling reaffirmed more than a century of legal precedent, including the Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
In that case, the court held that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents was a U.S. citizen by birth, establishing the modern interpretation of the Citizenship Clause.
Trump’s administration argued that children born to noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to automatic citizenship. Every lower court that reviewed the executive order rejected that interpretation before the Supreme Court’s decision.
Executive Order Never Took Effect
Trump’s order would have required at least one parent to be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for a child born in the United States to receive citizenship at birth.
The policy would have applied not only to people living in the country illegally but also to many individuals lawfully residing in the United States on temporary visas, including students and some workers.
Researchers with the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute estimated that more than 250,000 babies born in the United States each year would have been affected.
Three Justices Dissent
Three justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas — dissented, saying they would have allowed the administration’s restrictions to take effect.
According to multiple reports, Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the executive order violated federal law but concluded it did not violate the Constitution.
The decision marks a significant setback for the Trump administration’s immigration agenda and leaves intact the long-established understanding that nearly all children born in the United States automatically become American citizens under the 14th Amendment.
