The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the right to citizenship for people born in the United States, rejecting an executive order by President Donald Trump that sought to undo that longstanding constitutional principle for children born to many immigrants.
“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 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts said.
Roberts was joined by his fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with the court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the majority ruling on 14th Amendment grounds.
Another conservative, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote that he did not believe Trump’s executive order violated the 14th Amendment, but that it “does contravene a federal statute” adopted in 1940 that addresses the citizenship of people born in the U.S.
The other three conservatives on the court, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, all wrote dissenting opinions.
“The Court has made a serious mistake,” Alito wrote in his dissent to the ruling in the case, known as Trump v. Barbara.
The court’s justices had signaled during oral arguments in April that they would affirm that individuals born in the United States to non-U.S. citizens are automatically granted citizenship.
Trump attended the oral arguments, the first sitting president ever to do so.
If Trump’s order had been upheld, it would have left tens of thousands of babies
born in the U.S. each month to undocumented immigrants or visitors without American citizenship.
The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which was adopted in 1868, says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump, on his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, signed an executive order seeking to undo that right.
The order said that 30 days after its effective date, babies born in the U.S. were not entitled to be issued citizenship documents if their parents had immigrated illegally or were undocumented workers.
Demonstrators rally in support of birthright citizenship outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 1, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Mehmet Eser | Anadolu | Getty Images
Several U.S. district court judges afterwards ruled that Trump’s order violated the Constitution.
And two federal appellate circuit courts upheld injunctions blocking the order from taking effect.
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