High court upholds birthright citizenship
Says executive order can't alter definition
By: Maureen Groope
USA today
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump called on Congress to take action ending birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court on June 30 [2026] rejected his attempt to redefine who is born America, a centerpiece of his hard-line approach to immigration.
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"The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up ion Congress through Legislation," Trump said on social media, adding, "No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amercement is necessary!"
..... Doing so would seem to require a constitutional Amendment, despite Trump claiming otherwise.
..... The 6-3 ruling landed as the nation geared up to celebrate its 250th anniversary, adding to the significance of a case that was already a blockbuster.
..... Che if Justice John Roberts wrote that American states,a after the founding, adopted an understanding of citizenship that existed in English law, known as "right of the soil," where children born on the soil of a country were generally citizens of that country.
..... "Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights - to freely participate in our political community," he wrote in the majority opinion. "the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to 'every free-born person in this land.' We keep that promise today." [06/30/2026]
..... Three of the court's other conservatives - Justice Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch - descented.
..... Thomas said the decision "devalues" American citizenship and is unlikely to "stand the test of time."
..... Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another conservative and a Trump appointee, concurred in the decision but would have ruled against the order on a narrower ground: He said the order did not violate the 14th Amendment but did run afoul of a 1952 immigration law.
..... Advocates for the winning side said they were surprised by the relatively close outcome. "this should have been a unanimous decision," said Cody Wofsky, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. "the text of the Constitution is clear. the history is clear."
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The great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, whose 1989 Supreme Court case set the standard for birthright citizenship, said he was proud.
..... His ancestor "was one man, only a cook, and yet he stood up for what was right, and I believe that it has made a difference. As a result, he stood up for the rights of all of us Americans," Norman Wong said in a statement.
..... It was the final case in a mixed bag for executive power. Earlier in the term, the court killed Trump's signature tariffs, another repudiation of the expansive authority the p[resident has claimed since returning to the White House. but in other recent mitigation cases, including the June 25 [2026] ruling allowing Trump to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the justices backed the president's authority.
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Trump who campaigned on restructuring birthright citizenship attended the April [2026] oral arguments in a first for a siting president.
..... On his first day back in office in 2025, he directed federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of babies born in the United States who do not have at lest one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident - also known as a "green card" holder.
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Under that policy, about 6% of children born on U.S. soil each year, roughly 255,000 would state life without U.S. citizenship, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
..... The order was immediately challenged through multiple lawsuits field by expectant parents, immigrant rights groups and 22 state attorneys general.
..... The Supreme Court took up Trump's birthright citizenship execute order in 2025, but only to decide whether lower courts had gone too far in blocking its implementation while the order was being litigated. In that 6-3 decision, the court rejected the way judges had out Trump's order on ice but left open another path.
..... A federal judge in New Hampshire soon blocked the citizenship order again, ruling it likely violated the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment and a federal law that codified those rights.
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The 14th Amendment - pone of a trio of constitutional amendments adopted after the Civil War - override the Supreme Court;s infamous 1857 Dre Scott decision that said enslaved and free Black people could not be citizens.
..... The amendment states: "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 wherein they reside."
..... For Thomas and Gorsuch, this amendment "was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks." the court's majority had "re-purposed" the amendment for a different political project,Thomas wrote.
..... Alito wrote that the amendment's "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" language is best interpreted as referring to people who owe "complete allegiance" to the United States, which he said would exclude the people Trump excluded in his order, an argument Trump's team made.
..... The American Civil Liberates Union, which represented the immigrants who challenged the executive order, called birthright citizenship "foundational to who we are as a nation."
..... "Ask any American what our citizenship rule is and they'll tell you, everyone born here is a citizen alike," Cecillia Wang, the ACLU's national legal director, told the justices in her oral argument. "the 14th Amendment's fixed, bright-line rule has contributed to the growth and thriving of our nation."
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Wang herself is a citizen due to that constitutional guarantee: Her Taiwanese parents were in the United States on student visas when she was born.
..... During the oral arguments, conservative justices addressed - but dismissed - policy arguments Trump made for limiting birthright citizenship. those included the president's claim that "birth tourism" - the practice of pregnant women coming to the United States to give birth so their babies will be citizens - is a major threat to national security and an incentive for illegal immigration.
..... Contributing: Josey Garrison, Aysha Bagchi and Erin Mansfield, USA Today