The United States Supreme Court has ruled that babies born on US soil have a constitutional right to citizenship thereby delivering a major setback to President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
In a landmark 6-3 decision, the nation’s highest court rejected the administration’s attempt to dismantle a 150-year-old legal precedent via executive action.
The ruling firmly establishes that children born within the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are automatically citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
President Trump had sought to restrict the long-standing policy through an executive order. The administration argued that children of undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors were not genuinely “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, making them ineligible for automatic citizenship.
However, writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts soundly rejected that interpretation, anchoring the court’s decision in the historical context of the post-Civil War era.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land’.”
“We keep that promise today,” the chief justice added.
Five justices joined Roberts in ruling that the executive order violated the 14th Amendment. Justice Brett Kavanaugh aligned with the majority but wrote a separate opinion stating his belief that the administration’s order also directly violated federal law.
The decision provoked an immediate and sharp reaction from the White House and its allies. Taking to his social media platform, Truth Social, President Trump called the ruling “too bad” but insisted the fight was not over.
“No long and unwieldy constitutional amendment is necessary,” Mr. Trump posted. “Congress should today start work on ending expensive, and unfair to our country, birthright citizenship.”
White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a primary architect of the administration’s hardline immigration policies, launched a fierce attack on the court’s decision on X (formerly Twitter).
“American citizenship is not the birthright of the world,” Mr. Miller wrote, labeling the verdict “one of the most destructive and outrageous decisions” in the history of the Supreme Court. “No provision of the Constitution can be read to require our national self-obliteration.”
The decision exposed deep ideological divisions among the justices. Three conservative members of the court—Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito—entered strong dissents.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Thomas argued that the court was misapplying a historical text meant to protect freed slaves.
“The Fourteenth Amendment is being repurposed for political projects,” Justice Thomas wrote, adding that the newly emancipated people the amendment was designed to protect “were Americans” who held no allegiance to foreign powers.
Justice Alito called the majority ruling a “serious mistake” that creates an overly broad gateway to the country.
The ruling “confers citizenship on virtually anyone who happens to be born in this country,” Justice Alito argued, noting it would extend to those traveling to the US with the primary intention of giving birth before returning home.
The case had been a point of massive personal significance for President Trump, who broke with modern tradition in April by making a rare appearance inside the courtroom to witness oral arguments firsthand.
Enacted in 1868, the 14th Amendment was originally designed to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved African Americans. Over the subsequent century and a half, its scope has been consistently reinforced by successive Supreme Court rulings, cementing birthright citizenship for more than three million documented foreign nationals and an untold number of undocumented migrants currently living in the US.
Immigration advocates and congressional Democrats hailed Tuesday’s decision as a definitive victory for the rule of law.
“By applying the law and being guided by the Constitution, the top court finally affirmed that all persons born in the United States are American citizens,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the US House of Representatives. “There is, and shall be, no question.”
Civil rights organizations expressed immense relief after months of legal uncertainty.
“Anyone born on American soil, regardless of the legal status of their parents, is born an American citizen,” said Dariely Rodriguez, chief counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “We have endured an incredible test of our collective will as a nation and have prevailed.”
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