US Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid to End Birthright Citizenship

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By TRH World Desk

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship to nearly all children born in the United States, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders.

New Delhi, June 30, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution guarantees automatic birthright citizenship to virtually all children born in the United States, delivering a sharp rebuke to President Trump’s attempt to limit that right by executive order, according to NPR, which reported that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s 6-3 opinion.

The decision firmly rejected the executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office, which had sought to deny citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to parents who entered the country illegally or who hold temporary visas, NPR reported.

According to CNBC, the order would have denied citizenship to children born to parents who are unlawfully or only temporarily present in the country, but the court found that such children remain “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment.

The case, known as Trump v. Barbara, drew dissent from the court’s three other conservative justices. CNBC noted that Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not believe the order violated the 14th Amendment but felt it ran afoul of a 1940 federal statute, while Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch all wrote separate dissents, with Alito calling the ruling “a serious mistake.”

Background on the Case

The Colorado Public Radio outlet CPR reported that the justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, along with more recent federal laws, to conclude that anyone born in the country — with very limited exceptions — is a citizen. The order had never taken effect anywhere in the country, having been blocked by several lower courts.

CPR added that the ruling marks another instance where the court has pushed back against Trump’s assertions of executive power, following an earlier decision striking down global tariffs he had imposed under an emergency powers law.

More than a quarter-million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the order, according to research cited by CPR from the Migration Policy Institute and Penn State’s Population Research Institute.

Legal Precedent

NPR reported that the order sought to bar citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to parents who either entered the country illegally or were living and working legally on temporary visas, and that it never took effect because every lower court that reviewed it found it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

The ruling reinforces precedent dating back over a century to the landmark Wong Kim Ark decision affirming citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to noncitizen parents.