The United States Supreme Court has dismissed President Donald Trump’s attempt to end automatic birthright citizenship, delivering a major legal setback to his administration’s immigration agenda.
In a closely watched 6-3 ruling issued on Tuesday, the nation’s highest court reaffirmed that nearly everyone born on American soil is entitled to US citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The decision invalidates an executive order signed by Trump on the first day of his second term, which sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who were either in the country illegally or holding temporary visas.
The executive order had been challenged almost immediately, with lower federal courts ruling that it violated the Constitution. Those courts held that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all individuals born within US territory.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present remain protected under the Constitution.
“Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” Roberts stated in the court’s opinion.
The ruling follows oral arguments heard by the Supreme Court in April, during which Trump made the unusual decision to attend proceedings in person.
He remained in court for the presentation by Solicitor General John Sauer, who defended the administration’s position, but departed before arguments by Cecillia Wang of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who represented those challenging the executive order.
The administration had argued that unrestricted birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and promotes so-called “birth tourism”, where foreign nationals travel to the United States specifically to give birth so their children acquire American citizenship.
Trump’s legal team also maintained that the 14th Amendment—adopted after the American Civil War primarily to secure citizenship rights for formerly enslaved people—was never intended to apply to children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors.
The amendment declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”.
While exceptions exist for individuals such as children of foreign diplomats who are not fully subject to US jurisdiction, the administration argued that undocumented migrants and temporary visa holders should also fall outside that definition.
However, the Supreme Court relied on long-established constitutional precedent, including its landmark 1898 decision in the case of Wong Kim Ark.
In that ruling, the court held that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, was a US citizen despite being denied re-entry into the country under the Chinese Exclusion Acts after travelling abroad.
The latest judgment reinforces that precedent and preserves the longstanding interpretation of the Citizenship Clause.
The ruling marks another significant legal defeat for Trump during the court’s current term.
It follows earlier Supreme Court decisions that struck down most of his global tariff policy in February and blocked his attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from office earlier this week.
The decision is expected to have far-reaching implications for immigration policy and constitutional law, while maintaining the decades-old principle that birth on American soil generally confers US citizenship.
