The United States Supreme Court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending automatic birthright citizenship for certain children born in the country, delivering a significant legal setback to one of his key immigration policies.
In a 6-3 judgment delivered on Tuesday, June 30, the nation’s highest court held that the executive order conflicts with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees citizenship to individuals born on American soil and subject to US jurisdiction.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the majority opinion in the case, stated that children born in the United States to parents who are either in the country unlawfully or on a temporary basis still qualify for citizenship at birth under the Constitution.
According to Roberts, the Constitution clearly protects such children because they meet the requirements outlined in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The ruling came in the case Trump v. Barbara, with the Supreme Court agreeing with lower federal courts that had previously found the executive order to be unconstitutional.
Roberts also highlighted the historical importance of the 14th Amendment, explaining that it was adopted after the American Civil War to resolve questions surrounding the citizenship status of formerly enslaved people and to guarantee equal constitutional rights.
He wrote that citizenship has long represented the foundation for enjoying constitutional protections and participating fully in American society, adding that the amendment extended that guarantee to every person born in the United States.
President Trump signed the executive order on January 20, 2025, shortly after beginning his second term in office. The directive sought to deny automatic US citizenship to children born in the country if their parents were either living in the United States illegally or were only temporarily present.
The policy quickly faced multiple legal challenges from civil rights groups, immigration advocates and state governments, who argued that it violated the clear wording of the 14th Amendment, which recognises people born or naturalised in the United States as citizens.
While the majority of the court rejected the executive order, Justice Samuel Alito strongly disagreed with the decision. In his dissenting opinion, he described the judgment as one of the most significant in the court’s history and argued that the Constitution should not automatically grant citizenship to every child born in the country regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Alito maintained that a proper interpretation of the 14th Amendment limits birthright citizenship to children who owe their allegiance solely to the United States at birth.
The Supreme Court’s decision prevents the implementation of Trump’s executive order and reinforces the long-standing constitutional principle that children born in the United States are entitled to American citizenship, irrespective of their parents’ immigration status. The ruling also preserves decades of legal precedent surrounding the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and represents a major development in the ongoing national debate over immigration policy in the United States.
