Supreme Court Rejects Trump Birthright Citizenship Order, Preserving 14th Amendment Rule
The Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship, preserving the long-standing understanding that nearly all people born in the United States are citizens.
The court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Barbara that the order was unlawful. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the principal ruling, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson on the constitutional issue. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the order could not stand but wrote separately, saying it violated federal law. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
Trump’s executive order sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. when their parents were in the country unlawfully or temporarily. The directive never took effect after lower courts blocked it.
The ruling carries major legal and policy consequences. It keeps the existing citizenship rule in place, limits the president’s ability to rewrite constitutional citizenship standards by executive order, and shifts any future effort to restrict birthright citizenship toward Congress or a constitutional amendment fight. CBS and Reuters reported that the order could have affected an estimated 250,000 babies born in the U.S. each year.
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The case centered on the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which grants citizenship to people born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. The Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark has long been understood to protect citizenship by birth, with narrow exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats.
Trump criticized the ruling and called for Congress to pass legislation restricting birthright citizenship. The dissenting justices argued the majority misread the amendment’s history and scope.
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