The United States Supreme Court has upheld birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, striking down President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to deny automatic citizenship to certain children born on U.S. soil.
In a landmark decision delivered on June 30, 2026, the Court ruled that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present in the country are citizens at birth under the Constitution.
The ruling represents a significant constitutional setback for the Trump administration and reaffirms a long-standing interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14160, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.
The order argued that children born in the United States to parents who were in the country unlawfully or temporarily were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore should not automatically receive American citizenship.
The administration maintained that the Citizenship Clause should be interpreted more narrowly, contending that birth within the country’s borders alone was insufficient to establish citizenship under the Constitution.
The executive order was immediately challenged in federal court by several parents on behalf of their children, who argued that the policy violated both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act, which contains similar language governing citizenship.
A federal district court agreed with the challengers, provisionally certified a nationwide class of affected children, and issued a preliminary injunction preventing the executive order from taking effect while litigation continued.
Recognizing the constitutional importance of the dispute, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case before the federal appeals process had concluded.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the Citizenship Clause guarantees citizenship to virtually every person born within the United States.
Describing citizenship as “the right to have rights,” Roberts wrote that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that constitutional promise to “every free-born person in this land,” adding that the Court continues to uphold that commitment.
The majority concluded that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present remain “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore qualify as citizens from birth under the Constitution.
In reaching its decision, the Court examined the historical foundations of the Citizenship Clause, including English common law principles and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment following the Civil War.
The majority noted that the amendment was intended to overturn the effects of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which denied citizenship to people of African descent.
According to the Court, the amendment established a broad constitutional guarantee that birth within the United States confers citizenship, subject only to a narrow set of recognized exceptions.
The Court found that the executive order’s interpretation conflicted with both the historical understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment and long-established constitutional precedent.
The decision preserves one of the foundational principles of American constitutional law and maintains the long-standing practice of granting citizenship to children born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents’ immigration status, subject to limited constitutional exceptions.
It also reinforces the limits of presidential authority by making clear that constitutional rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment cannot be altered through executive action alone.
The ruling is expected to shape future debates over immigration policy, constitutional interpretation, and executive power while preserving birthright citizenship as a constitutional guarantee unless changed through a constitutional amendment or a future decision of the Supreme Court.
With the ruling, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that the Citizenship Clause continues to provide automatic citizenship to eligible individuals born within the United States, preserving a constitutional protection that has remained central to American law for more than 150 years.
