Birthright Citizenship Executive Order: 14th Amendment and Ruling

The birthright citizenship executive order signed by President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, never took effect and was struck down by the Supreme Court on June 30, 2026. In Trump v. Barbara, the Court held that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment.¹ If you have a child born on U.S. soil, the constitutional rule that has governed for more than a century still governs: birth in the country confers citizenship, regardless of the parents’ immigration status.

What the Executive Order Tried to Do

Executive Order 14160, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” directed federal agencies to stop recognizing as citizens any babies born after February 19, 2025, in two situations. The first: the mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. The second: the mother was in the country only on temporary status — a student visa, work visa, tourist visa, or admission through the Visa Waiver Program — and again the father was not a citizen or permanent resident.²

The order told federal agencies to refuse documents recognizing citizenship for children in those categories and to reject state or local documents that did. The Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Commissioner of Social Security were directed to conform their regulations, with implementation guidance due within 30 days.²

Why the Fourteenth Amendment Blocks It

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The clause was written to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision and place birthright citizenship on constitutional footing that Congress alone could not undo.³⁴

Senator Jacob Howard, who sponsored the clause, described it as “simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is a citizen of the United States.”⁵ The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was understood at the time to exclude only narrow categories: children of foreign diplomats with immunity from U.S. law, members of Indian tribes with independent political relations, and members of invading armies.³

The Supreme Court cemented this reading in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Wong was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were permanent residents. When he was denied reentry after a trip abroad on the theory that he was not a citizen, the Court ruled 6-2 that he was a citizen from birth, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory.”⁶⁷

How the Courts Blocked It

Lawsuits began the day after the order was signed. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown led a four-state coalition on January 21, 2025, and California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts led a separate 18-state coalition along with the City of San Francisco.⁸⁹ Immigrants’ rights organizations and individual families filed challenges as well.

Federal judges acted within days. On January 23, 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Washington issued a temporary restraining order, calling the order “blatantly unconstitutional.” On February 5, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland issued a nationwide injunction, noting that “no court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation” of the Citizenship Clause.¹⁰ Judge Coughenour converted his order to a nationwide injunction on February 6, and U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts issued a third nationwide injunction on February 13. A narrower injunction from U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante in New Hampshire followed on February 10.¹¹

The Detour on Nationwide Injunctions

Rather than defend the order on its merits, the administration first attacked the reach of those injunctions. On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. CASA, Inc. that “universal injunctions” — orders barring enforcement against anyone, not just the named plaintiffs — likely exceed the equitable authority Congress granted federal courts. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.¹² The ruling did not touch the constitutionality of the birthright order itself. It sent the cases back for lower courts to craft narrower relief.¹³

Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented sharply. Sotomayor accused the government of “gamesmanship” to insulate what she called “plainly unlawful policies,” warning that “no right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.” Jackson called the ruling an “existential threat to the rule of law.”¹⁴

The Class Action That Reached the Merits

On the same day the CASA decision came down, the ACLU and allied groups filed a nationwide class action, Barbara v. Donald J. Trump, designed to work within the new framework by seeking class-based relief.¹⁵¹⁶ On July 10, 2025, Judge Laplante provisionally certified a class of all current and future persons born on or after February 20, 2025, whose mothers were either unlawfully present or on temporary status and whose fathers were not citizens or permanent residents, and he blocked enforcement against the class.¹⁷ On December 5, 2025, the Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment, bypassing the First Circuit to take up the constitutional question directly.¹⁸

What the Supreme Court Held

The Supreme Court heard argument in Trump v. Barbara on April 1, 2026. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Wong Kim Ark only protected children of parents with “lawful domicile” and that undocumented immigrants and temporary visitors fall outside it. He also argued that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment could not have anticipated modern mass immigration.¹⁹

Justices across the ideological spectrum pushed back. Chief Justice Roberts responded to the “new world” framing with, “It’s the same Constitution.”²⁰ Justice Gorsuch noted that the word “domicile” appears nowhere in the Fourteenth Amendment or the congressional debates behind it, and asked whether Native Americans born today would be citizens under the government’s test; Sauer answered, “I’m not sure, I have to think through that.”²¹ Justice Barrett pressed on how the domicile theory would have applied to formerly enslaved people, whom the amendment was written to protect.

The ruling came down on June 30, 2026. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson. The Court held that the Citizenship Clause incorporates the common-law principle of jus soli and that “children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth.”¹

The majority rejected the government’s attempt to narrow “jurisdiction” to lawful domicile. The phrase, the Court held, refers to the government’s power to govern those within its territory. The only historically recognized exceptions remain children of foreign diplomats with immunity and members of Indian tribes with independent political status. The opinion stated: “If Congress intended to limit American citizenship to the children of those domiciled in the United States, nothing in the succinct language of the Citizenship Clause conveyed that design.” The Court also held that “postenactment history cannot override the text” of the Fourteenth Amendment.¹

Justice Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment but dissented in part. Justices Thomas and Alito each filed dissents, with Thomas joined by Gorsuch, and Gorsuch filing a separate dissent as well.¹

What Was at Stake for Families

The order was blocked before it could be enforced, but the potential consequences shaped much of the litigation record. Children denied citizenship under the order would have been ineligible for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and SNAP, and would have faced barriers to lawful employment, driver’s licenses, in-state college tuition, and voting. Advocates warned that some could have become effectively stateless.²²

Researchers estimated Latinos would have made up nearly 80 percent of affected births in the near term, and amicus briefs projected at least 750,000 children born to two undocumented or temporary-status parents over the following 20 years.²² California alone estimated about 24,500 births per year in the state would have fallen within the order’s terms.⁹ Some schools began requiring proof of citizenship or immigration status, and reports emerged of attendance dropping by as much as 50 percent in certain areas as families avoided contact with authorities.²³

Could the Rule Still Change

Because the Supreme Court decided the case on constitutional grounds, birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and temporary-status parents cannot be undone by executive order or by ordinary legislation. Only a constitutional amendment could change it. On June 27, 2025, Congressman Andy Barr of Kentucky announced the introduction of a proposed amendment, titled the “Protecting American Citizenship Amendment,” that would end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.²⁴ Constitutional amendments require two-thirds approval in both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures, a threshold that has historically made such proposals difficult to enact.

1
Cornell Law Institute. Trump v. Barbara
2
The White House. Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship
3
National Constitution Center. Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship Clause
4
Constitution Annotated, Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship Clause
5
Brennan Center for Justice. Birthright Citizenship Under the U.S. Constitution
6
National Constitution Center. United States v. Wong Kim Ark
7
Justia. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649
8
Washington State Attorney General. SCOTUS Arguments Begin; 24 States’ Attorneys General Issue Joint Statement
9
California Attorney General. Attorney General Bonta Sues Trump Administration Over Unconstitutional Executive Order
10
American Immigration Council. Breaking Down Trump’s Effort to End Birthright Citizenship
11
SCOTUSblog. Where Does Birthright Citizenship Order Currently Stand
12
U.S. Supreme Court. Trump v. CASA, Inc.
13
SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Sides With Trump Administration on Nationwide Injunctions
14
Justia Verdict. Notes on the Opinions in Trump v. CASA, Inc.
15
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Groups File Nationwide Class Action Lawsuit Over Trump Birthright Citizenship Order
16
ACLU. Barbara v. Donald J. Trump
17
FindLaw. Barbara v. Trump, Civil No. 25-cv-244-JL-AJ
18
SCOTUSblog. Trump v. Barbara
19
New York Times. SCOTUS Birthright Citizenship Takeaways
20
CNN. Supreme Court Birthright Citizenship Oral Arguments
21
U.S. Supreme Court. Transcript of Oral Argument, Trump v. Barbara
22
Brennan Center for Justice. Trump Birthright Citizenship Order Impact on Latinos
23
Stop AAPI Hate. Birthright Citizenship Executive Order FAQ
24
Office of Rep. Andy Barr. Barr Announces Introduction of a Constitutional Amendment to End Birthright Citizenship