The Supreme Court has upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
The justices in their decision in a New Hampshire case Tuesday relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling anyone born in the country is a citizen, with limited exceptions. The Republican president’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect. The outcome is another major defeat at the high court for Trump, who saw his global tariffs blocked in February.
The decision comes on the final day of a Supreme Court term that has centered on Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power — and largely ruled in his favor.
The court on Monday handed Trump a major win by upholding his firings of independent federal agency heads at will, with the exception of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, who will retain her job while she fights the president’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud.
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Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.
The Republican president’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.
During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.
The case framed another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power that has largely ruled in his favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.
The justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.
Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “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,” it reads.
More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.
Supreme Court strikes down limits on party spending in federal elections
The Supreme Court on Tuesday erased limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president, striking down a federal election law that’s more than 50 years old.
Prodded by a Republican-led lawsuit that includes Vice President JD Vance, the court’s conservative justices were again in the majority of the latest decision that upended congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.
The limits on party spending stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.
The Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits in 2001.
Supreme Court upholds state laws banning transgender girls and women from school athletic teams
The ruling is another setback for transgender people.
The court’s conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.
Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.
Several courts have blocked the citizenship restrictions
The justices are weighing Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them.
Trump signed the birthright citizenship order on the first day of his second term, but the restrictions have not taken effect anywhere in the country.
Dueling views on birthright citizenship
In oral arguments, Sauer, the lawyer for Trump’s administration, said that birthright citizenship encourages illegal immigration and “rewards illegal aliens who not only violate the immigration laws but also jump in front of those who follow the rules.”
The practice “demeans the priceless and profound gift of American citizenship,” he told the court.
But the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging Trump’s order, sees it very differently.
“It’s one of the clearest statements of who we are as a country,” the ACLU said in a statement. “No matter who your parents are, if you’re born here, you belong here.”
America’s views on birthright citizenship
Most Americans say they believe in birthright citizenship, though many are conflicted about exactly who it should apply to.
An April survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research of more than 2,500 U.S. adults found that about two-thirds say children born in the U.S. should get automatic citizenship. That number drops to 44% for Republicans.
But the poll also showed ambivalence when it came to specifics.
For example, 75% of U.S. adults support automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. to parents in the country on work visas. Only about half, though, believe in it for children born to parents who are illegally in the country.
The court ruled Monday that states can count late-arriving mailed ballots
The 5-4 decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day.
The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
In just over half of those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.
The government has faced judicial skepticism
During oral arguments, even many conservative justices appeared unconvinced by the government’s case.
“I can imagine it being messy in some applications,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, asking Solicitor General D. John Sauer about the issue of abandoned infants.
“What if you don’t know who the parents are?” she asked.
Sauer started to say that question was addressed in the U.S. code, but Barrett quickly interrupted him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about the Constitution?” she asked.
How do most countries decide a child’s citizenship?
Outside of the Americas, most countries follow the legal principle of jus sanguinis, or “right of blood,” with a child’s citizenship inherited from its parents, no matter the place of birth.
In the European Union, for example, no member states grant automatic, unconditional citizenship to children born to foreigners.
But American legal practice is descended in many ways from English common law, which had long provided for citizenship based on a child’s place of birth, the legal concept of jus soli, or “right of soil.”
The UK, though, abandoned jus soli with the British Nationality Act of 1981.
Under the new rules, people born in the UK get citizenship only if at least one parent is a British citizen or has “settled status” under the law.
The justices will read summaries of their opinions
The court will dive right into the remaining decisions when the justices take the bench at 10 a.m. ET. The opinions are typically read in ascending order of seniority so that the most junior justice with an opinion goes first. Chief Justice John Roberts, who may well have the decision in the birthright citizenship case, would go last.
Monday’s ruling on federal agencies dramatically expanded presidential power
Other than at the Federal Reserve, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority.
The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights Trump’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.
With the six conservative justices in the majority, the nine-member court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey’s Executor that had limited when presidents can fire agencies’ board members — in part to try to ensure decision-making free of political influence.
“We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
The court will also rule on trans athletes and campaign finances
In separate cases, the court will also decide:
Whether states can prohibit transgender athletes from playing on girls’ and women’s public school and college teams.
Whether to uphold a federal law more than 50 years old limiting how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and the president.
The court seemed poised to reject Trump’s birthright citizenship limits during arguments in April
Oral arguments for the case lasted more than two hours in a crowded courtroom that included Trump, the first sitting president to attend arguments at the nation’s highest court, and, in seats reserved for the justices’ guests, actor Robert De Niro.
Trump heard his administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, face one skeptical question after another. Justices asked about the legal basis for the order and voiced more practical concerns.
“Is this happening in the delivery room?” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, drilling down into the logistics of how the government would actually figure out who is entitled to citizenship and who is not.
Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that Sauer was relying on quirky exceptions to citizenship to make a broad argument about people who are in the country illegally.
“I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” Roberts said.
Justice Clarence Thomas sounded the most likely among the nine justices to side with Trump.
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