United States Supreme Court reaffirms constitutional guarantee of U.S. citizenship at birth

WASHINGTON, Jun 30 (APP): In a key ruling, the United States Supreme Court upheld the foundational idea of birthright citizenship, declaring that an executive order cannot deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the country to non-permanent residents and undocumented immigrants.

The 6-3 ruling affirmed the long-accepted interpretation that the Constitution instinctively guarantees birthright citizenship to children born in the United States.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

This verdict follows months of political debate around the issue that the Republican Party frames as key to the overall U.S. immigration system, arguing that the interpretation is outdated and applied only to children of slaves at the time of its framing in the 19th century. Democrats pushed back against that stance, contending that the constitutional right to citizenship for newborns applies irrespective of their parents’ status.

Tuesday’s ruling cast aside the executive order that President Donald Trump issued on the first day of his second White House term, which sought to deny citizenship to babies born in the United States to parents who are here with temporary status or entered the country illegally without proper visa documentation or valid permission. A series of lower court judgments had declared the executive order contrary to the relevant provisions enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday reestablished the constitutionally ordained right of anyone born in the country to be an American citizen and reaffirmed the interpretation that the relevant 14th Amendment applies unconditionally.

“We keep that promise today,” the chief justice wrote.

“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in dissent. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

In arriving at the decision that the U.S. Charter confers citizenship at birth, the chief justice was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the majority in invalidating the executive order, though he parted ways with the court’s lead opinion by anchoring his vote in statutory law rather than constitutional interpretation. On the other side, three conservative members of the bench—Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito—dissented from the decision.

According to experts, President Trump’s order of January 20, 2025, appeared to be in direct tension with both the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal statutory provisions enacted in 1940, which together extend citizenship to virtually all individuals born on American soil, with a few exceptions like offspring of foreign diplomats or children born to hostile occupying forces.

A number of immigration and immigrant rights organizations welcomed the Supreme Court’s verdict, saying it clearly established the already stated constitutional right to citizenship for every newborn in the United States.