Supreme Court rejects Trump's order limiting birthright citizenship in 6-3 ruling

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected President Trump's order limiting birthright citizenship, ruling that children born in the United States to parents who are in the country unlawfully or on temporary visas are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. The vote was 6 to 3.

The decision in Trump v. Barbara leaves in place a rule that has governed American citizenship for more than a century: with narrow exceptions, anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen at birth. Executive Order 14160, which Trump signed on January 20, 2025, never took effect. Every lower court to review it had blocked it, and a federal judge in New Hampshire had certified a nationwide class of affected children and enjoined the order before the case reached the justices.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the Court. He was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment, agreeing the order could not stand while parting with the majority on part of its reasoning. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

What the order would have done

The order, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," directed federal agencies to stop recognizing citizenship for babies born in the United States to parents who entered the country illegally or who were present lawfully but temporarily, such as on student or work visas. It was challenged within hours of being signed.

The Court's reasoning

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." The administration argued that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes the children of parents who lack lawful permanent status, contending it requires the parents' domicile or allegiance to the United States.

Roberts rejected that reading. The Court held that children born here to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and are therefore citizens. The opinion leaned on United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case in which the Court held that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents was a citizen by birth. Roberts wrote that the men who drafted the amendment after the Civil War defined citizenship broadly on purpose, and that the Wong Kim Ark rule had been treated as settled for more than 160 years, including when the government granted citizenship to children born in World War II internment camps.

Cecillia Wang of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case in April, told NPR the framers chose to confer citizenship on the child rather than the parent. "In America we do not punish children for the sins of their fathers," she said, "but instead we wipe the slate clean."

The dissenters took the administration's side on the text. The principal dissent, written by Thomas and joined by Gorsuch, argued that "subject to the jurisdiction" was understood at ratification to require more than birth on U.S. soil, and that the clause was tied to a parent's domicile and full political allegiance. Alito and Gorsuch each filed separate dissents.

Trump has long maintained that the amendment does not guarantee birthright citizenship and was meant to cover former slaves, not, as NPR reported his framing, "the entire world." Courts have not adopted that view.

What happens next

Trump and some congressional allies said after the ruling that they would press Congress to write the order's provisions into law, according to NBC News. The path is narrow. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster, and amending the Constitution would require far larger majorities and ratification by three-quarters of the states.

The ruling came on the final day of the Court's term, one of several decisions handed down Tuesday.