The US Supreme Court has upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship.
The Supreme Court Justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen. “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 ruling said.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion. He was joined by liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the judgment but dissented in part.
“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.’ We keep that promise today.”
Chief Justice John Roberts
Three conservative Justices would have allowed the restrictions to take effect. The conservative Justices; Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch filed dissenting opinions. The court’s writings in the ruling span 194 pages, nearly 90 of which were written by Thomas in dissent, his longest in his tenure on the court.
Thomas wrote in his dissent that Black people were entitled to citizenship because they were Americans with “no other homeland” or allegiance to other nations.
“The same could not be said for the children of foreign temporary visitors. Foreign temporary visitors were attached to their home country, lacked similar bonds to this country, and would not be called upon in time of war.”
Justice Clarence Thomas
The Supreme Court ruling rejects President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. The President had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term that sought to undo birthright citizenship.
Trump’s order immediately drew lawsuits, including from the Democratic state Attorneys General and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU argued in front of the US supreme court on the case during oral arguments in April for Trump v Barbara, a class action challenge to the order, brought by parents of children who would be affected by the change.
During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal Justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.
The Justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions. The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown. Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling.
Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the US, excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “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,” it reads
According to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute, more than one-quarter of a million babies born in the US each year would have been affected by the executive order. While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.
The Republican President’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the US. In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump’s executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court’s 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the US-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.
The Trump administration argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
Trump Criticises Justices, Birthright Citizenship
President Donald Trump seemed to recognize the Supreme Court was likely to rule against him on birthright citizenship, too, using his Truth Social platform to criticize “dumb Judges and Justices” and wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere who come to the US to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.
The Justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.
Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the Justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.
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