Trending 
The United States Supreme Court has rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, delivering a 6–3 ruling that preserves the constitutional right to citizenship for nearly all individuals born on US soil.
The decision, issued on the final day of the Court’s term on Tuesday, upheld long-standing interpretations of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to persons born or naturalised in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said: “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.”
Trump’s executive order, signed on the first day of his second term, sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the US to undocumented migrants or individuals on temporary visas. Lower courts had already blocked the order, ruling it inconsistent with constitutional protections established under the 14th Amendment.
The Trump administration had argued that the amendment was intended to address the citizenship status of formerly enslaved people following the Civil War, not children of non-citizens. It also claimed that extending birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and so-called “birth tourism,” where foreign nationals travel to the US specifically to give birth.
During Supreme Court hearings in April, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the current interpretation of the amendment creates incentives for such practices. Trump himself attended part of the proceedings, a rare appearance by a sitting president, though he left before arguments from the American Civil Liberties Union, which defended birthright citizenship.
The Court’s ruling reaffirmed its earlier precedent in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which established that a child born in the US to foreign parents is a citizen by birthright.
The decision marks a significant setback for Trump, representing his third major legal defeat in the current term, following rulings against his global tariff policy and efforts to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
