Supreme Court's 5-4 birthright citizenship ruling deals Trump a major defeat

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Donald Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship, preserving a constitutional guarantee that has stood for more than 125 years.

The court ruled 5-4 that the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause prevents the president from unilaterally denying automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented or temporary-visa parents, rejecting a policy Trump had pursued since his first presidential campaign in 2015.

"President Trump's illegal birthright citizenship order was not just an attack on our Constitution — it was an attack on millions of Americans who have immigrant heritage," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who led 216 congressional Democrats in filing a brief supporting the policy, said in a statement.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court's three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the order was unlawful but wrote separately that it violated federal statute rather than the Constitution, suggesting Congress could pass a law narrowing the policy. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, arguing Trump's order was fully lawful.

The ruling affects an estimated 255,000 children born annually in the U.S. who would have been denied citizenship under the policy, according to the Migration Policy Institute — roughly 6 percent of all projected births. The share of the U.S. population without citizenship or legal status would have been 40 percent larger by 2075 under the change, the institute estimated.

Trump signed the executive order on his first day back in office in January 2025, limiting citizenship to children born to citizens or legal permanent residents. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" — language the Supreme Court first interpreted in its 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision, which held that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents was a U.S. citizen. That precedent has stood for 128 years.

Kavanaugh's partial dissent opens a potential path for legislative action. By ruling the order violated a 1952 immigration statute rather than the Constitution, he left Congress the option to pass a new law excluding certain categories of children from automatic citizenship — though such legislation would require 60 votes in the Senate.

A Divided Term on Presidential Power

The birthright citizenship ruling capped a term in which the court's conservative majority frequently backed Trump on executive authority. On Monday, the court ruled 6-3 that the president may fire Federal Trade Commission members without cause, overturning a 1935 precedent. It also upheld Trump's policy of turning away asylum seekers at the border and his administration's decision to end temporary protections for Haitian and Syrian nationals.

But on birthright citizenship, the court drew a constitutional line. Trump had predicted he would lose the case, telling reporters Monday he would "accept" the decision but calling the policy "tremendously destructive" and "extremely costly." He became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments when the case was heard April 1.

In two other decisions Tuesday, the court ruled 6-3 to allow states to ban transgender athletes from female sports teams and struck down a 50-year-old limit on campaign spending coordinated between political parties and candidates — the latter a win for Vice President JD Vance and Republicans.

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