Supreme Court to Weigh Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order This Week

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Wednesday on the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, according to CBS News and NPR. CBS News called the case, Trump v. Barbara, a major test of a pillar of Trump’s immigration agenda and the first in which the justices will weigh the merits of one of his immigration policies. A decision is expected by the end of June or early July, CBS News reported.

The question is whether the order violates the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment and the federal law that codified it, CBS News reported. The clause, 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,” NPR reported. Trump signed the order on his first day back in office. It denies citizenship to children born to a mother in the country unlawfully and a father who is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident, or to a mother with lawful temporary status and such a father, according to CBS News. It has never taken effect because lower courts blocked it, CBS News said.

The administration’s argument, as set out by Solicitor General D. John Sauer in filings described by CBS News (SCOTUSblog describes the brief as urging the court to read the clause to require a parent’s legal domicile in the country), is that the clause’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes children whose parents lack sufficient ties to the country. For people here temporarily, he wrote, their children are unlikely to develop them; for those here illegally, he said, defiance of the law is “inconsistent with establishing the requisite allegiance.” Lawyers for the affected children argue the amendment guarantees citizenship by birth regardless of parents’ status, CBS News reported. CBS News noted that in an 1898 case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court affirmed the rule of citizenship by birth, with limited exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats, and that the federal law codifying the clause dates to 1940.

The case reaches the court after last year’s ruling that limited nationwide injunctions, CBS News reported. Afterward the American Civil Liberties Union and others filed a class action, and U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante in New Hampshire provisionally certified a class of all children who would be denied citizenship and blocked enforcement against them. The administration appealed and asked the Supreme Court to take the case directly, per CBS News; SCOTUSblog lists the court’s grant as Dec. 5, 2025. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!” and claimed other countries are “selling citizenships” to the U.S.

NPR reported that public opinion is nuanced and depends on how pollsters ask. Americans heavily favor citizenship for children of parents born in the U.S. or who immigrated legally but are split on children of parents who entered illegally. A Public Religion Research Institute survey in December found two-thirds in favor regardless of parents’ status, and a large-sample poll by CHIP50 found 59% in favor of keeping it, though both mentioned the Constitution in their questions, NPR said. Pew found three-quarters of Democrats but about a quarter of Republicans supported citizenship for children of those who immigrated illegally, NPR reported. Only about three dozen countries, mostly in the Western Hemisphere, offer automatic birthright citizenship, NPR added.