In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship and struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order that would have denied citizenship to children born to people in the country illegally or temporarily. The decision hinged on the 14t
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court delivered a hard stop to President Donald Trump’s effort to narrow birthright citizenship—ruling that the 14th Amendment still makes Americans of children born in the United States, with only very limited exceptions.
By a 6-3 vote. the court struck down Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. The decision was written by Chief Justice John Roberts. and it turns on a promise the court said has endured since the Civil War.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land. ’” Roberts wrote. citing congressional debate over the amendment. “We keep that promise today.”.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed with the constitutional ruling, but sided in the judgment, pointing to federal law that he said broadly conveys birthright citizenship.
In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued the court crossed a line. “The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens. ” Thomas wrote in a 91-page dissent. more than three times as long as Roberts’ opinion. He said the majority’s approach adds to what he described as a “sad history” of the 14th Amendment. which he argued was designed to secure equal rights for freed Black people but has since been “repurposed” for political projects the Reconstruction Congress did not support.
The stakes were immediate in the way court cases like this can be: Trump’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the United States.
Trump reacted quickly after the ruling, saying it was “too bad for our Country” and suggesting Congress could “easily” address the decision with legislation. The majority said its ruling rests on constitutional grounds, and that overcoming it would require an amendment.
The case also landed in a moment of heightened scrutiny over executive power. During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the legality of Trump’s order in a case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.
The Supreme Court ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court decision from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.
Trump signed the birthright citizenship order on the first day of his second term. It was part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown. and it was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices had previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.
Trump’s relationship with the court has been openly combative at times. After the late February tariffs decision, he said he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and called them unpatriotic.
He also criticized the court before the birthright decision, using his Truth Social platform to attack “dumb judges and justices” and to target wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere whom he said come to the United States to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.
The order would have upended a widely held understanding of the 14th Amendment—that it grants citizenship to everyone born in the United States—except for children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force. That idea is embedded in the text the court emphasized: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”.
That clause was intended, in part, to ensure that Black people—including former slaves—had citizenship, though the language itself is written more broadly. The court’s reasoning relied heavily on the historical record of the amendment and on a long-standing precedent.
Lower courts had already struck down Trump’s executive order as illegal, invoking the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in Wong Kim Ark, which held that a U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.
Roberts. joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberal justices. said the amendment’s language. its historical context. and the Wong Kim Ark case make clear that children born to parents illegally or temporarily in the United States “are citizens at birth.” Still. the constitutional question produced only a bare majority of five justices.
Kavanaugh joined the majority in outcome, saying the federal law at issue makes those children citizens. But he sided with the dissenters on the constitutional question, writing that Trump’s order does not violate the Constitution. In his view, the decision would allow Congress to change the law to restrict birthright citizenship in the future.
The Trump administration had argued that the common view of citizenship was wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
The policy impact—if it had survived—would have been large. More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the United States each year would have been affected by the executive order. according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
While Trump has focused much of his immigration rhetoric and action on illegal immigration. the birthright citizenship restrictions would have applied beyond that group. They would also have reached children born to people who were legally in the United States. including students and applicants for green cards. or permanent resident status.
A closely divided court has left the current legal baseline intact. For families across the country, that means the question at the center of the dispute—whether birth in the United States itself confers citizenship—remains governed by the 14th Amendment as the Supreme Court has long understood it.
Supreme Court birthright citizenship 14th Amendment Trump executive order illegal immigration Wong Kim Ark John Roberts Brett Kavanaugh Clarence Thomas Amy Coney Barrett New Hampshire ruling