The US Supreme Court has ruled 6-3 that children born in America to undocumented or temporarily present parents are constitutionally entitled to citizenship, decisively rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end the 150-year-old birthright citizenship policy enshrined in the 14th Amendment.
One hundred and fifty years of constitutional promise. Six justices just made sure it stays intact.
The United States Supreme Court has handed Donald Trump one of his most stinging legal defeats yet, ruling 6-3 that birthright citizenship — the right of every child born on American soil to automatic US citizenship — is constitutionally protected and cannot be stripped away by executive order.
According to The BBC, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, was unambiguous in his ruling, declaring that children born in the US “to parents unlawfully or temporarily present” are “citizens at birth” under the 14th Amendment, according to major US media outlets covering the landmark decision.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote. “We keep that promise today.”
Trump had signed an executive order arguing that children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary visitors weren’t “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — the key phrase in the 14th Amendment — and therefore ineligible for birthright citizenship. The court rejected that interpretation entirely.
On Truth Social, a defiant Trump called the decision “too bad” and pivoted immediately to Congress.
“No long and unwieldy constitutional amendment is necessary. Congress should today start work on ending expensive, and unfair to our country, birthright citizenship,” he posted.
Three justices dissented — Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito. Justice Alito called the ruling a “serious mistake” that “confers citizenship on virtually anyone who happens to be born in this country.” Justice Thomas argued the 14th Amendment was being “repurposed for political projects.”
But the majority held firm. The 14th Amendment — passed in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, originally to guarantee citizenship to freed slaves — was designed to extend belonging broadly, and Roberts’ court upheld that original expansive vision.
Birthright citizenship has stood since 1868. Trump tried. The Constitution held.
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