Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, strikes down Trump executive order

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship, ruling that the 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, even those born to parents who are unlawfully present or in the country on temporary visas.

Majority opinion

In a 6-3 decision in Trump v. Barbara, the court rejected Trump’s January 2025 executive order, which would have required a baby born on U.S. soil to have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s majority opinion, joined by all three liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Roberts said the order violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” 

Roberts wrote there is “scant evidence for this dramatically revisionist view,” referring to the Trump administration’s interpretation.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” he wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that Trump’s order should be blocked but did so because he believed the order violated federal law rather than the 14th Amendment. He wrote in his opinion that Congress could pursue a constitutional amendment or enact legislation addressing birthright citizenship.

Dissenting opinions

The three remaining conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — dissented, siding with the Trump administration. 

Thomas wrote in his dissent that he was “not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time,” arguing that the majority’s decision “devalues” American citizenship. He said the majority improperly expanded birthright citizenship beyond the amendment’s original public meaning. 

Alito, in a separate dissenting opinion, called the ruling both “one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court” and a “serious mistake.” 

“Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way,” Alito argued. “Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.”

Arguments before the court

Trump signed the order on his first day in office, but it never took effect after courts blocked the policy amid a wave of lawsuits from Democratic-led states, immigration groups, and individual plaintiffs, who argued that it ran afoul of the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.

The Trump administration argued that courts have misread the Citizenship Clause for decades. U.S. Solicitor General John D. Sauer said in court filings that the amendment was intended to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved black Americans and their children — not to children born to illegal immigrants or foreign nationals temporarily in the country.

Sauer also argued that the amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” does not cover children born to parents who lack permanent legal status because those parents do not owe full political allegiance to the U.S.

That dispute also shaped the conservative dissents in the Supreme Court’s ruling. Alito and Gorsuch wrote in their dissents that the court should have allowed more room to interpret “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in light of modern immigration concerns.

The challengers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the Supreme Court had already settled the issue in its 1898 decision United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to people born in the U.S. “including all children here born of resident aliens.” 

Republican lawmakers call for legislation, constitutional amendment

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., a Catholic who filed an amicus brief in January urging the court to uphold Trump’s order, criticized the ruling in a June 30 X post and said he would propose a constitutional amendment. 

“Here, the Supreme Court issued a constitutional ruling. Ordinary legislation cannot repair the damage. A constitutional amendment is now required,” Schmitt wrote. 

He said the amendment would “restore the original American understanding of citizenship” and ensure citizenship reflects “allegiance, permanence, and membership in the American nation.”

“The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act of 1866,” Schmitt argued. “The original American understanding of citizenship was never a suicide pact. It was never a weapon for illegal entry, temporary presence, demographic conquest, or foreign influence.”

In a follow-up post, Schmitt said he was also filing legislation to clarify the meaning of the Citizenship Clause, while he worked on the proposed amendment.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also criticized the ruling, saying the court “failed the American people, the Constitution, and the rule of law.”

Roy said Congress should define the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to tie citizenship to a parent’s citizenship status rather than birth on U.S. soil. He also called for restricting federal funding to agencies or states that provide documentation or legal status to people he said are not covered by the clause.

He wrote, “To do otherwise would be an abject failure of the United States Congress.”

Trump responded to the court’s ruling in a Truth Social post, saying “too bad for our Country.” He said, however, that Congress can “easily make it up” through legislation. 

“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!”

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