The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of birthright citizenship in a June 30 ruling striking down President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to end the historic right.
The 6-3 decision affirms the long-held understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1866, that anyone born in the country is automatically a U.S. citizen except in rare circumstances. The president wanted to deny that right to the children of undocumented immigrants and foreign nationals in the country legally but temporarily.
In its ruling in Trump v. Barbara, the high court upheld numerous lower-court rulings against the president’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order.
Chief Justice John Roberts
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth.”
The ruling comes amid Trump’s broad immigration crackdown and was the only bright spot in a week of defeats for immigrant advocates. The justices ruled June 25 to end Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians and also to allow border agents to turn migrants away before they reach U.S. soil to prevent them from applying for asylum.
Dissenting justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas sided with the administration’s position that the amendment has been too widely applied, that it was intended only for the children of African slaves and should apply only to those children under U.S. jurisdiction at the time of birth.
Samuel Alito
Alito’s dissenting opinion called the ruling “a serious mistake” by defining citizenship too broadly. It will continue the trend of “birthright tourism” in which expectant mothers visit the country long enough to give birth to American-citizen children, he charged. “Careful analysis of the text of the 14th Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.”
Ruling that Trump’s order is unconstitutional is an “extraordinary step” that ignores the intent of the 14th Amendment, Thomas wrote in dissent. “In doing so, the court adds to the sad history of the 14th Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed Blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called Thomas’ dissent “myopic” for failing to grasp that the amendment’s Citizenship Clause was intended to provide citizenship not only to the children of slaves but other marginalized ethnic groups.
Ketanji Brown Jackson
“By ignoring that our Constitution stands firmly against caste and subjugation — on all axes and in all manners — they deny the clear, universalist vision shared and proclaimed by the 14th Amendment’s Framers: To ‘rebuild a shattered empire, … to plant deep and solid the cornerstone of eternal justice, and to erect thereon a superstructure of perfect equality of every human being before the law.’”
The president and anti-immigrant Republicans in Congress lashed out against the ruling.
“I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!,” Trump said on social media shortly after the ruling was released. The comment follows a previous post in March suggesting wealthy Chinese abuse the amendment and that it was meant exclusively for the “BABIES OF SLAVES.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was “very disappointed in that outcome” and then criticized the high court majority for taking a “textualist, originalist view” of the 14th Amendment.
That was an ironic statement given Johnson’s staunch belief in interpreting the Constitution strictly as the Founders intended and because just a week earlier he predicted the court’s conservative majority would take an “originalist” and “textualist” approach in overturning birthright citizenship.
Mike Johnson
Johnson added it would require a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship. “I think it subjects the country to serious challenges going forward, and we’ll have to deal with it as Congress.”
The speaker wasn’t alone in suggesting a constitutional amendment, which would require approval by two-thirds of both chambers and ratification by three-quarters of the states.
“This is the cheap and cheated citizenship the Supreme Court upholds today. The long fight for a constitutional amendment begins now,” said U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, while Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said he plans to “keep working on a constitutional amendment to restore American citizenship.”
However, Trump made it clear he wants a quicker solution. “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which litigated the lawsuit against the administration, said the president’s executive order wasn’t just about birthright citizenship.
“This was more than a legal case. It was a fight against President Trump’s efforts to create a permanent subclass of people born in this country but denied their rights as American citizens. Our milestone victory proves unequivocally that the president does not decide who belongs in this country,” said Cecilia Wang, national legal director at ACLU.
Alex Padilla
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said the justices simply followed what the 14th Amendment says: “While there is nothing surprising about Donald Trump’s efforts to erode birthright citizenship and disregard laws he doesn’t like, today’s decision reaffirms over a century of legal precedent protecting this fundamental constitutional right.”
The ruling protects what is clearly a constitutional right and “that no president has the power to take away,” Interfaith Alliance said. “Birthright citizenship is a bedrock promise of our multi-faith democracy. No president gets to pick and choose which children born in this country belong. … The court was right to reject this attempt to turn citizenship into a political weapon.”
Haitian Bridge Alliance described the ruling as a win for immigrant families and communities. “It is also a victory for TPS recipients and other immigrant parents raising U.S.-born children. No president has the power to erase constitutional rights or decide which children are worthy of American citizenship,” Executive Director Guerline Jozef said.
The ruling also provides peace of mind to the families whose fates were hanging in the balance, according to the League of United Latin American Citizens, according to President Roman Palomares: “This decision confirms a truth that generations of Americans have lived by: A child born on this soil is a citizen of this nation. The court has made clear that no president can override the Constitution by decree.”
The Council on American Islamic Relations said the 14th Amendment has helped define American principles.
“We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Constitution and reject this misguided effort to undermine one of our most fundamental rights,” the group said. “Stripping away birthright citizenship would have created chaos, threatened the rights of millions and eroded the very foundation of our nation.”
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