US Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship in blow to Trump agenda

The US Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, ruling that nearly everyone born on US soil is an American citizen and dealing a major setback to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

Trump had signed an executive order on the first day of his second term seeking to end automatic citizenship for children born in the US to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts held that the order violated the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”

Roberts was joined by liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, along with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the judgment but partly dissented, saying the executive order violated federal law rather than the Constitution. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch also dissented. The ruling runs to 194 pages, with nearly 90 pages comprising Thomas’ dissent, the longest of his tenure.

Reacting to the judgment, Trump described it as “too bad for our Country” and urged the US Congress to pursue legislation to end birthright citizenship.

“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “They will have my Complete and Total Support!”

Civil rights groups and Democrats welcomed the ruling, calling it one of the most significant constitutional decisions in recent history. The American Civil Liberties Union, whose National Legal Director Cecillia Wang argued the case on behalf of parents challenging Trump’s order, described the verdict as a “major victory”.

“The court’s decision reaffirms a fundamental American promise – if you are born here, you are a citizen,” Wang said. “A president cannot change the constitution by executive fiat. Our brave clients and our legal team stand with millions of people around our country who spoke up for one of our most cherished rights. The constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship stands strong.”

Trump has long challenged birthright citizenship, promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was therefore ineligible to be president. He also questioned Kamala Harris’ eligibility for the vice-presidency and later the presidency based on her parents’ immigration status at the time of her birth.

The administration argued that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment excludes children born in the US to people who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily. Under Trump’s executive order, children would not receive automatic citizenship if neither parent was a US citizen or lawful permanent resident, or if a parent held only temporary legal status. The order was to take effect from Feb 19, 2025, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of births each year.

As legal challenges proceeded for more than a year, the citizenship status of thousands of children born to parents without permanent legal status remained uncertain.

Political reactions reflected deep partisan divisions. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House, said the 14th Amendment “withstood the unconstitutional attack launched by Donald Trump and his most sycophantic and xenophobic enablers”.

“On the eve of America’s 250th birthday, the far-right Maga conservatives have failed in their quest to remake the United States, and American values have prevailed,” Jeffries said.

Several Republicans criticised the ruling. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “I do think that this has been grossly abused in recent years. You just come on to the soil and have your child, and then they’re able to avail themselves of the welfare state and everything else.”

The majority opinion traced the evolution of citizenship from English common law through slavery, emancipation and later attempts to restrict citizenship, including the Chinese Exclusion Act. Roberts noted that the “odious” 1857 Dred Scott decision had denied citizenship to Black people based on ancestry rather than birthplace. He wrote that the 14th Amendment overturned that ruling by granting citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”.

“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,” the majority wrote.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the 14th Amendment’s “universalist aims should forever be the death knell for this kind of claim – one that seeks to make bloodline the marker of birthright”.