Supreme Court Crushes Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order, Slams Anti-Immigration Agenda

The Supreme Court has obliterated Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at blocking automatic birthright citizenship for newborns in the U.S., delivering a staggering blow to his anti-immigration agenda and his audacious attempt to rewrite the Constitution.

The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause explicitly states that “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.”

For over a century, the Supreme Court has consistently upheld this definition, with Congress enshrining it into law in 1952.

In a brazen executive order, Trump sought to redefine this amendment, proposing that babies born on U.S. soil would be denied citizenship at birth if their mother was “unlawfully present” or held “lawful but temporary” status, and if the father “was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

In a divided ruling from the Supreme Court, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the majority concluded that children born in the U.S. to parents “unlawfully or temporarily present” are indeed “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and are citizens at birth.

Roberts noted there is “scant evidence” supporting the Trump administration’s “dramatically revisionist view” of the 14th Amendment and its limits on citizenship at birth.

“In any case, postenactment history cannot override the text,” Roberts stated. “If Congress intended to limit American citizenship to the children of those domiciled in the United States, nothing in the succinct language of the Citizenship Clause conveyed that design.”

The terms used in Trump’s order — “mother,” “father,” “lawful,” “temporary” — are conspicuously absent from the 14th Amendment, as Roberts pointed out.

“For a simple reason: they did not matter,” he wrote.

Citizenship has historically been viewed as “the right to have rights,” according to Roberts, allowing individuals to freely participate in the political community.

The framers of the 14th Amendment “extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Roberts cited, referencing Senator Lyman Trumbull’s remarks during the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. “We keep that promise today.”

The decision to strike down Trump’s order was a 6-3 vote, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joining conservative Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh — both appointed by Trump.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

However, the justices only voted 5-4 to affirm that the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship to all children of immigrants.

Kavanaugh objected, asserting that Trump’s order violated federal law and suggested Congress could amend it.

After facing multiple legal defeats over the past year, the Trump administration turned to the Supreme Court to clarify whether the 14th Amendment “provides that those ‘born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ are U.S. citizens.”

During oral arguments in April, justices expressed skepticism towards the administration’s defense.

U.S. solicitor general D. John Sauer contended that the Constitution “does not extend citizenship to temporary visa holders and illegal aliens,” claiming that the current landscape of illegal immigration diverges from historical norms.

“It’s a new world,” Chief Justice John Roberts retorted, “but it’s the same Constitution.”

The court’s ruling “reaffirms a fundamental American promise — if you are born here, you are a citizen,” stated ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who argued the case at the Supreme Court.

“A president cannot change the Constitution by executive fiat,” she emphasized. “The Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship stands strong.”

Trump’s attempts to govern through a barrage of executive orders have faced significant judicial pushback, fueling his attacks against the judiciary. He has repeatedly criticized justices on the conservative-majority court — including his own appointees — whom he deems insufficiently loyal to his agenda. He has labeled them “lap dogs” who are “bad for the country.”

In an unprecedented move, Trump attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court regarding his birthright citizenship order. He left abruptly during questioning when his top lawyer struggled under scrutiny from skeptical justices, including three he appointed.

No sitting president had ever observed oral arguments at the Supreme Court before. After his departure, he posted a one-sentence message on Truth Social calling the country “stupid.”

If implemented, Trump’s executive order would have devastated immigrant families and fundamentally altered how births are registered in the U.S., where children have been granted citizenship at birth for over a century with rare exceptions.

Families feared not only losing their child’s constitutional rights but also navigating complex legal and humanitarian challenges in an already convoluted immigration system.

In their briefs to the court, Trump administration lawyers referenced several scholars who opposed birthright citizenship in the 1800s, a movement driven by anti-Black and anti-Chinese racism following Reconstruction and rising anti-immigrant sentiments.

A group of anti-immigrant scholars argued that the 14th Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excluded children of Chinese immigrants.

The Supreme Court rejected this argument in its landmark decision in United States v Wong Kim Ark in 1898, affirming that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to nearly everyone born in the country.

With this latest ruling, that principle remains intact.