The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a crucial ruling today affirming that children born within the territory of the United States are U.S. citizens.
The opinion, authored by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Barrett, and Jackson, invalidates the Trump administration’s Executive Order 14156, which sought to exclude certain children born in the United States from obtaining U.S. citizenship. The Supreme Court’s decision affirms decades of legal precedent establishing that, with limited exceptions, children born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, are U.S. citizens. The decision holding the Executive Order unconstitutional was 5-4, meaning that four justices thought this did not violate the Constitution (Justice Kavanaugh joined the judgment invalidating the Executive Order on the grounds that it violated a statute, rather than the Constitution). Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito dissented.
The concept of birthright citizenship refers to how children attain citizenship in a nation-state. For over a century, anyone born on U.S. soil has automatically been conferred citizenship at birth regardless of their parents’ immigration or citizenship status. In January 2025, the Trump administration sought to end birthright citizenship for 1) children of an undocumented mother and a father who is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident; and 2) children of a mother who is a temporary visitor and a father who is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Several lawsuits were immediately filed to block implementation of the executive order.
The Court’s decision rebuked the administration’s arguments to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants and those with temporary status. The decision unequivocally states that children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as stated in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision also rejects the government and dissent’s argument that citizenship is predominantly tethered to a person’s domicile.
The impact of this decision is profound. The January 2025 executive order would have relegated a class of people – those born in the country after the executive order – to undocumented status because it directed federal agencies to not issue certain identity documents, such as Social Security numbers, to impacted children. Thankfully, the Court affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship for those born in this country. This means that it would require amending the Constitution to take away this right — a tall task given the strenuous process required to do so and the fact that most Americans support maintaining birthright citizenship based on being born in the United States.
