In a 6-3 ruling on June 30, the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children of foreign nationals. The decision means babies born in the U.S. are still considered Americans, and
On June 30, the Supreme Court delivered a clear defeat to President Donald Trump on one of his most consequential immigration promises: the push to limit birthright citizenship.
The court issued a 6-3 ruling rejecting Trump’s executive order that sought to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States whose parents were foreign nationals—whether those parents were in the country legally or not. Trump issued the order on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term. Because of legal challenges, the order never took effect.
The ruling matters because it locks in the basic rule that children born in the U.S. are considered Americans, regardless of their parents’ status. The court’s decision also comes after Trump campaigned on restricting birthright citizenship and. in a first for a sitting president. attended the April 2026 oral arguments.
The NAACP’s leadership called the ruling a defense of constitutional equality. Derrick Johnson. the organization’s president and CEO. said in a statement: “This decision is a powerful affirmation of the Constitution and the enduring promise of equality it represents. For over 150 years, the Fourteenth Amendment has guaranteed citizenship to everyone born in this country. Today. the Court rightly rejected efforts to undermine that core protection and instead upheld a principle that is essential to our democracy.”.
The groups that opposed Trump’s order argued that it would have dramatically expanded the number of children affected by citizenship stripping. They said birthright citizenship protects about 255,000 children born annually in the U.S. to immigrant parents. They also said that. had the executive order stood. it would have stripped an estimated 4.8 million future U.S.-born children of citizenship by 2045 and 12.8 million by 2075. citing data from the Migration Policy Institute.
Organized Power In Numbers, a workers’ group, framed the ruling as both relief and only a starting point. Neidi Dominguez. its executive director. said in a statement: “The Trump administration tried to narrow the definition of citizenship and the access to the rights that come with it and even this Supreme Court disagreed. This is a real relief, and it is welcome. It is also the bare minimum.”.
Dominguez pointed to pressures that immigrant families still face even after the court preserved the birthright guarantee. She noted last week’s Supreme Court ruling that could end Temporary Protective Status for about 1 million people from other countries living in the U.S. including Haitians. Syrians and Venezuelans.
For Dominguez. the tension is immediate: a U.S.-born child’s citizenship may be secured. but the family’s stability is not. She said: “Birthright citizenship is protected today.” But she added: “But the workers whose children depend on it still face deportation. worksite raids and an administration that has made clear it will use every tool available to make immigrant workers afraid. isolated. and stripped of their rights.”.
The legal foundation for the outcome traces back to the 14th Amendment. The amendment was ratified in 1868 and was upheld in a ruling in 1898. after overturning a 1857 Supreme Court decision that had declared that people of African descent could never be U.S. citizens. For decades. the 14th Amendment has been interpreted as guaranteeing citizenship for babies born in the U.S. with narrow exceptions such as the children of foreign diplomats or members of an enemy occupying force.
The path to today’s ruling runs through that history, including the aftermath of the Civil War. Dominguez said birthright citizenship was guaranteed through the passage of the 14th Amendment after formerly enslaved Africans and their allies fought for equal rights and for the principle that children born in the United States have citizenship regardless of where their parents come from.
In the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Trump’s executive order violated the 14th Amendment. “Citizenship. then and now. was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community. ” Roberts wrote. adding that the authors of the 14th Amendment extended that promise to every free-born person in the land.
Roberts also wrote, “We keep that promise today.”
The sequence ends with the court’s refusal to narrow the constitutional guarantee—at least on this point. The Supreme Court has made sure that the immediate result remains the same for families across the country: if a child is born in the United States. the child is considered an American under the Constitution.
Supreme Court birthright citizenship Donald Trump 14th Amendment immigration policy executive order Derrick Johnson NAACP Temporary Protective Status Organized Power In Numbers Neidi Dominguez