The United States Supreme Court has ignited a fierce national debate by agreeing to hear a case that could reshape the very definition of American citizenship. On December 5, 2025, the court announced it would take up an expedited appeal of President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to parents who are not legal permanent residents or citizens. This move thrusts into the spotlight a constitutional principle that has been a bedrock of American identity for nearly 160 years.
President Trump, wasting no time after his inauguration for a second term on January 20, 2025, signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The order declared that U.S. government departments were no longer to recognize citizenship for anyone born in the country if their mother was unlawfully present or only temporarily in the United States and their father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. According to ABC News, this marked the second time Trump’s order would come before the Supreme Court, but this time, the justices are expected to review the case on its merits, with oral arguments likely scheduled for spring 2026 and a decision anticipated by the end of June.
For more than a century, courts and the federal government have interpreted the 14th Amendment to guarantee citizenship to anyone born on American soil, regardless of their parents’ legal status. The relevant clause, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, reads: “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.” As reported by BBC News, exceptions have been historically narrow, applying mainly to children of foreign diplomats and enemy military forces.
Trump’s executive order, however, challenged this longstanding interpretation. The administration argued that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was never meant to apply to children of undocumented immigrants or those in the country on temporary visas. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the administration, stated in court filings that “the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children, not to the children of illegal aliens, birth tourists, and temporary visitors.” Sauer further argued, as quoted by Al Jazeera, that “the erroneous extension of birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens has caused substantial harm to the United States. Most obviously, it has impaired the United States’ territorial integrity by creating a strong incentive for illegal immigration.”
The Trump administration’s action didn’t go unchallenged. Almost immediately after the order was issued, a Temporary Restraining Order was granted in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Arizona, Illinois, Washington, and Oregon. Over the following months, federal courts of appeals in both the Ninth and First Circuits denied the administration’s requests to reinstate or stay the order. In July 2025, Judge Joseph N. Laplante of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire ordered a national block of the executive order, and Seattle District Judge John C. Coughenour upheld a similar block later that month. Judge Coughenour described the president’s order as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing the plaintiffs challenging the executive order, has been unequivocal in its criticism. Cecillia Wang, the ACLU’s national legal director, told CBS News, “No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship.” She added, “For over 150 years, it has been the law and our national tradition that everyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen from birth. We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.” Wang also noted, “Federal courts around the country have consistently rejected President Trump’s attempts to strip away this core constitutional protection. The president’s action goes against a core American right that has been a part of our Constitution for over 150 years.”
Despite these legal setbacks, the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case is seen as a significant development, especially given its current 6-3 conservative majority, with three justices appointed by Trump himself. According to Al Jazeera, the court has sided with Trump in a series of decisions this year, allowing various immigration policies to take effect after lower courts had blocked them. These included the revocation of temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants and the expansion of domestic immigration enforcement raids.
The case also revisits a pivotal Supreme Court precedent: United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). In that landmark decision, the court held that a person of Chinese ancestry born in San Francisco was a U.S. citizen, rejecting a narrow interpretation of the “subject to the jurisdiction” clause. As detailed by JURIST, this precedent has underpinned the broad understanding of birthright citizenship ever since.
Trump’s administration, however, contends that the 14th Amendment was designed specifically to address the rights of former slaves, not the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors. The solicitor general has called it a “mistaken view” that birth on U.S. soil alone confers citizenship, arguing that this understanding has had “destructive consequences.”
The stakes are high, not just for the individuals directly affected but for the nation as a whole. According to Pew Research Center data cited by the BBC, about 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in the U.S. in 2016—a figure that has fallen by 36% since 2007. By 2022, there were 1.2 million U.S. citizens born to unauthorized immigrant parents. A recent study by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute warned that repealing birthright citizenship could increase the unauthorized population in the U.S. by 2.7 million by 2045 and by 5.4 million by 2075.
The United States is one of about 30 countries—mostly in the Americas—that grant automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders. The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision could have sweeping implications, not only for the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown but for the fundamental question of what it means to be an American citizen.
With oral arguments expected in the spring and a decision likely by the end of June 2026, the nation is bracing for a ruling that could either reaffirm a tradition dating back to the Reconstruction era or fundamentally alter the contours of American identity. All eyes are now on the Supreme Court, as the justices prepare to weigh in on one of the most consequential constitutional questions of our time.
