The US Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would review the ruling constitutionality From the decree through which President Donald Trump attempted to end birthright citizenship, a principle established since the late nineteenth century and considered one of the pillars of American immigration law. The decision opens the door to an unprecedented analysis of the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment and the contemporary meaning of childbirth in the United States.
The case stems from an executive order Trump signed on January 20, his first day back in the White House. The decree states that children of illegal immigrants and some temporary residents will not automatically obtain US citizenship. The measure never went into effect: courts in Washington, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire immediately blocked it, one going so far as to call it “Blatently unconstitutional.”
The Trump administration appealed the decision and achieved a partial victory in June. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court limited the scope of so-called “global injunctions” and questioned the practices of district judges who block federal policies across the country. However, this ruling did not address the essence of the matter: whether the decree is compatible with the Constitution or not.
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Once the dispute has been reactivated, the Court has now agreed to examine this substantive issue. The judges are scheduled to hear arguments in the coming months, and a ruling is expected at the end of June.
The controversy revolves around the interpretation of the citizenship clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted after the Civil War, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” Since 1898 with governance United States v. Wong Kim ArkThis requirement was understood as a guarantee of citizenship for all those born on American soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.
The courts of first instance agreed to stay the implementation of the decree, but once the dispute is reactivated, the court will now examine the merits of the case.
Trump’s legal team confirms that this reading is incorrect. In the lawsuit he filed before the court, the Public Prosecutor, Dr. John Sawyer argued that this clause was designed to guarantee the rights of “newly freed slaves and their children, not of the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens.” According to Sawer, the current interpretation has become “invasive, with devastating consequences,” and the presidential decree will be limited to “restoring the original meaning” of the amendment.
Trump has publicly questioned birthright citizenship for years. After his victory in the 2024 elections, he announced: “We’ll finish it because it’s ridiculous.”reiterating that modifying this practice is a priority on his immigration agenda.
Civic organizations and constitutional specialists reject this position. “For thousands of families, birthright citizenship represents the promise that their children can realize their full potential as Americans,” said the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a new class action lawsuit hours after the ruling in June, and warned that the policy could leave children born to parents who are in the country illegally “effectively stateless.”
“For more than 150 years, the law and our national tradition have held that every person born on American soil is a citizen by birth,” Cecilia Wang, national legal director for the ACLU, emphasized in a statement. The organization also accused the government of basing its defense on “a mixture of incorrect historical data, inappropriate citations, newly invented doctrines, and political preferences.”
The lower courts – which include conservative and progressive judges – agreed to halt implementation of the decree. A federal judge in Seattle considered that the order violated American judicial precedent. Wong Kim Arc; Another, in New Hampshire, authorized a class action lawsuit to protect all children who could be affected by the policy.
This case adds to a particularly busy period for the Court, which in this chapter reviews other important executive actions, from emergency definitions to disputes over presidential authority to remove officials from independent agencies. The decision on birthright citizenship could become one of the most important decisions of this period.
The question is no longer whether the court will strike down the measure, but “on what of many possible grounds it will do so,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown Law School.