![Infographic about the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision rejecting Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, with courthouse backdrop and Trump silhouette on the left and a baby wrapped in an American flag on the right.] ,](https://thewashingtoneye.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/ChatGPT-Image-Jul-20-2026-12_27_09-AM-860x573.png "birthright citizenship us - washington eye")
US President Donald Trump has suffered a major legal defeat after the Supreme Court rejected his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, preserving the constitutional right of most people born on American soil to become US citizens automatically. In a landmark 6-3 ruling delivered in Washington on June 30, 2026, the court held that Trump’s executive order violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion and was joined by conservative Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Kavanaugh agreed that the order was unlawful but argued separately that it conflicted with federal citizenship law rather than the Constitution itself.
Trump signed Executive Order 14160 on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second presidential term. It instructed federal agencies not to recognise citizenship for children born in the United States when neither parent was an American citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. The policy covered children of undocumented migrants as well as some people legally present on temporary work, student or tourist visas.
The administration argued that such children were not fully “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, a phrase contained in the 14th Amendment. Government lawyers said the existing interpretation encouraged illegal migration and “birth tourism,” in which foreign nationals allegedly travel to the United States specifically to obtain citizenship for their children. During oral arguments, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said thousands of foreign nationals had exploited the policy, although he acknowledged that the true scale of birth tourism was uncertain.
The challengers included parents and children represented through a class-action lawsuit filed in New Hampshire. They argued that a president could not rewrite the Constitution through an executive order and that Trump’s policy would create a generation of US-born children without secure nationality, access to passports or full political rights.
The constitutional dispute centred on the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 following the Civil War. Its Citizenship Clause declares that all people born or naturalised in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and the state in which they live. The amendment was adopted partly to reverse the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which had denied citizenship to people of African descent.
The court also relied heavily on its 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Wong, the US-born son of Chinese immigrants, was denied entry to the country after travelling abroad. The Supreme Court ruled that his birth in San Francisco made him an American citizen regardless of his parents’ nationality. Roberts said the court had repeatedly understood that ruling as protecting nearly every child born on US soil, apart from narrow exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats or enemy occupying forces.
Roberts rejected the administration’s interpretation as “dramatically revisionist,” finding little historical evidence that the Constitution limited citizenship to children whose parents were permanent residents. He wrote that citizenship represented the “right to have rights” and said the court was maintaining the promise made by the post-Civil War amendment.
Trump condemned the decision as “too bad for our Country” and urged Congress to pass legislation ending what he described as an expensive and unfair policy. However, legal experts and the AP noted that because the majority based its judgment on the Constitution, ordinary legislation would probably be insufficient to overturn it; a constitutional amendment would likely be required.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the judgment one of the most destructive decisions in Supreme Court history, arguing that American citizenship should not become “the birthright of the world.” The dissenting justices similarly maintained that the 14th Amendment had been interpreted too broadly and that at least some applications of Trump’s order were constitutionally permissible.
Civil-rights and immigration organisations celebrated the outcome. ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang said the judgment reaffirmed the American promise that a person born in the country is a citizen, adding that a president could not change the Constitution by executive decree. Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, described the ruling as a victory for all Americans and fundamental constitutional rights.
The issue remains politically divisive, although an April Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 64 percent of Americans opposed ending birthright citizenship, compared with 32 percent who supported Trump’s proposal. Republican voters were more supportive of ending the policy, while Democrats overwhelmingly favoured retaining it.
Trump said on July 8 that he would ask the Supreme Court to rehear the case. Such requests are rarely accepted, particularly after the court has issued a full decision in an argued case, making a reversal unlikely. For now, the judgment blocks one of the most ambitious elements of Trump’s immigration programme and preserves a principle that has shaped American citizenship for more than 150 years.
