The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine whether the United States will continue to recognize birthright citizenship, a constitutional protection that has stood for more than 150 years. The justices announced Friday that they will decide whether President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end automatic citizenship for certain children born in the country is constitutional. The directive, called Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, was issued on Trump’s first day of his second term and has been blocked by multiple federal courts.
Under the order, which has not taken effect due to litigation, people born in the United States would not automatically receive citizenship if their parents were in the country temporarily or without legal authorization. The administration argues that the 14th Amendment was intended to apply only to freed slaves and their children, not to undocumented immigrants or people visiting the country. The case poses sweeping implications for Trump’s broader immigration agenda and for the longstanding understanding of what it means to be an American citizen.
The 14th Amendment, enacted in 1868, states: “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 nearly 160 years, this clause has been interpreted to guarantee citizenship to nearly all people born on US soil, with exceptions for children of diplomats and foreign military personnel. The United States remains one of about thirty countries, mostly in the Americas, that grant automatic citizenship by birth.
Two landmark Supreme Court cases, United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), affirmed birthright citizenship under the Constitution. These rulings form the core precedent that federal courts have repeatedly cited while blocking Trump’s attempt to reinterpret the amendment. According to the 9th Circuit, which unanimously ruled the order unconstitutional in July, the directive “violated the plain language of the 14th Amendment.” In total, four federal courts and two appellate courts have struck down the order.
Despite this broad judicial rejection, the Supreme Court’s right wing majority ruled in June that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” While that decision did not address birthright citizenship directly, it limited the tools available to lower courts and helped pave the way for this case to reach the justices. The Supreme Court has not yet set a date for oral arguments, but a ruling is expected months from now.
Civil rights groups say the legal question is already settled. “No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, national legal director at the ACLU, which is leading a nationwide class action challenge to Trump’s order. She added, “For over 150 years, it has been the law and our national tradition that everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen from birth,” and said, “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
Other advocates expressed alarm that the Court agreed to hear the case at all. Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, said, “This case is a right-wing fantasy, full stop. That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair.” He added, “Even if the court ultimately rules against Trump, in a laughable display of its supposed independence, the fact that fringe attacks on our most basic rights as citizens are being seriously considered is outrageous and alarming.”
Legal groups emphasized the longevity and clarity of existing constitutional protections. Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, said “it’s deeply troubling that we must waste precious judicial resources relitigating what has been settled constitutional law for over a century,” noting that “every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional.” Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, said, “The attack on the fundamental right of birthright citizenship is an attack on the 14th Amendment and our Constitution.” She added, “We are confident the court will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century. Millions of families across the country deserve and require that clarity and stability.”
The administration’s argument rests on a narrower reading of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer claims that the amendment was adopted “to confer citizenship on the newly freed slaves and their children, not on the children of aliens temporarily visiting the United States or of illegal aliens.” Sauer argued it is a “mistaken view” that birth on US soil confers citizenship and claimed this interpretation has had “destructive consequences.”
The potential consequences of ending birthright citizenship are substantial. According to data cited in the source material, about 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in the US in 2016, a 36 percent decrease from a peak in 2007. By 2022, there were 1.2 million US citizens born to unauthorized immigrant parents. A study by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute found that repealing birthright citizenship could increase the unauthorized population by 2.7 million by 2045 and by 5.4 million by 2075. Such an outcome would create more people without legal status, including those born and raised in the United States, intensifying the very conditions the administration claims to be addressing.
The legal stakes, political consequences, and human impact of this challenge to the 14th Amendment are enormous. The Court’s decision to hear the case signals a willingness to reconsider constitutional guarantees that have guided the country for more than a century and a half. The ruling will determine not only the fate of Trump’s executive order but also the stability of citizenship for millions of Americans, and the durability of one of the Constitution’s most far reaching promises.
COMMENTS