The Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 on June 30, 2026, that children born in the United States to parents who are in the country without legal status, or who are here on temporary visas, are American citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, directly rejecting the executive order President Trump signed on his first day back in office in January 2025, which had attempted to redefine the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Citizenship Clause to exclude those children. Roberts wrote that there was “scant evidence” for the administration’s reading of the amendment, and that the children affected are citizens “at birth” under the plain text of the Constitution. Trump responded on Truth Social by urging Congress to pass legislation codifying his position instead.
What Trump’s Order Tried to Do
The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens. Trump’s executive order argued that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” excludes children of people here illegally or on temporary legal status, such as student or work visas, meaning those children could be born here and denied citizenship from birth. More than 250,000 babies born in the United States each year would have fallen into that category under the order’s definition, according to research from the Migration Policy Institute. Trump’s lawyers pressed that argument at the Supreme Court; Roberts and five other justices rejected it.
A Precedent That Goes Back to 1898
Roberts anchored the majority opinion in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a landmark 1898 Supreme Court ruling involving a man born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese immigrant parents. In that case, the Court held that birthright citizenship extends to children of immigrants regardless of their parents’ nationality or legal status, a principle that has governed American citizenship for 128 years. Roberts wrote that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to “every free-born person in this land.” The great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark publicly praised Tuesday’s ruling, calling it a confirmation of a legal principle that his family’s history had already tested and established more than a century ago.
The Dissents
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 91-page dissent, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment was originally intended to apply only to formerly enslaved people and their descendants, not to all persons born on American soil. Justice Samuel Alito called the ruling “one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court” and “a serious mistake,” writing that the majority relied on precedent that “glosses the text” of the amendment rather than reading it as written. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that Trump’s order must be struck down, but wrote separately that he would do so on statutory grounds, finding that the order violates existing federal law, rather than reaching the constitutional question the majority resolved.
Where It Stands
The ruling is a direct constitutional loss for the administration on one of its stated first-term and second-term priorities. Birthright citizenship remains the law. The more than 250,000 babies born here annually to parents without permanent legal status are citizens at birth, as they have been since 1898. Trump’s call for Congress to pass legislation codifying his position faces the same obstacle as the SAVE America Act: it would need 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, and Republicans hold 53 seats. Alito’s description of the ruling as one of the most important in Court history was not intended as a compliment, but as a measure of how much the three dissenters believe was at stake and lost.