The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship in a 6-3 ruling on Tuesday.
Three conservative justices––John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett––joined Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in finding that the children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors are citizens under the 14th Amendment.
President Donald Trump had signed an executive order on January 20, 2025 instructing departments and agencies not to issue U.S. citizenship to those born to temporary visitors or to those unlawfully present in the United States. The administration argued before the court that illegal aliens and temporary visitors were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States—a phrase from the 14th Amendment—because they did not meet the original standard of complete, undivided allegiance to America.
The court upheld its ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) that the children of non-citizens received citizenship by fact of being born in the United States.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a 91-page dissent, argued that the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was provided in the context of newly freed black slaves who “had no other homeland, owed no allegiance to any foreign power, and were subject to no other authority . . . The same could not be said for the children of foreign temporary visitors.” Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “the Court has made a serious mistake.”
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