Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, Strikes Down Trump's Executive Order

The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 30, 2026 that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship at birth to virtually every child born on US soil, regardless of their parents' immigration status. The decision in Trump v. Barbara strikes down Executive Order 14160, signed by President Trump on January 20, 2025, which had attempted to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the US to parents who were undocumented or in the country on a temporary visa. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Barrett and Jackson. Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the outcome but on narrower, statutory grounds rather than constitutional ones. Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch dissented. The ruling resolves 17 months of legal uncertainty for families across the country and restores the citizenship rule that has applied, with limited exceptions, since 1898.

Background

The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause states that anyone born in the US and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is a citizen. It was added after the Civil War specifically to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans. The Supreme Court has read the clause broadly since Wong Kim Ark in 1898, a case that confirmed citizenship for a child born in the US to Chinese immigrant parents who were themselves ineligible for citizenship under the law of that era. Executive Order 14160 tried to carve out two exceptions to that long-standing rule: children born to a mother who was in the US unlawfully, and children born to a mother who was in the US on a lawful but temporary basis (a work, student or tourist visa) if the father was not a US citizen or permanent resident at the time of birth. The order was blocked by lower courts almost immediately and never took practical effect, but the legal fight over its validity worked its way through the federal court system until this decision.

What the ruling says

Chief Justice Roberts rejected the administration's argument that "subject to the jurisdiction" should be read to require a child's parents to owe primary allegiance to the United States, or to be domiciled there. Instead, the majority held that the phrase simply means being subject to US law, a condition met by virtually anyone physically present in the country, regardless of immigration status. Writing for the majority, Roberts stated that under the Constitution, children born on US soil "are citizens at birth." The narrow exceptions the Court has long recognized, for children of foreign diplomats and, historically, of members of Native American tribes not taxed under federal law, remain the only carve-outs. Justice Kavanaugh, while agreeing that the executive order could not stand, reasoned that it conflicted with existing federal statute rather than reaching the constitutional question directly, a distinction that matters for how future disputes over citizenship might be argued but does not change the practical outcome here.

Who it affects

This ruling matters most directly for anyone in the US on a temporary visa, an undocumented basis, or any other non-permanent-resident status who has a child in the US or is planning to. Since the order never took effect, no child has actually lost citizenship over it, but the uncertainty affected how some hospitals handled paperwork and how some families approached decisions about where to give birth. A worker in the US on an H-1B, a student on an F-1 visa, or a person without legal status who has a baby in a US hospital can now do so with the same certainty that applied before January 2025: the child is a US citizen at birth, full stop. This also affects people currently exploring a move to the US who had factored the executive order's uncertainty into family planning decisions.

What this means in practice

For families already living in the US, nothing changes procedurally: hospitals issue birth certificates as they always have, and those documents remain proof of US citizenship. Anyone who was told, incorrectly, that their child's citizenship status was in doubt because of the executive order should know that doubt is now resolved by the Court. People weighing a move to the US, whether on a work visa or another temporary status, covered in GoMate's [United States country guide](/country-guides/united-states), can treat birthright citizenship as settled law again rather than a pending legal question. President Trump responded on social media suggesting Congress could pursue the issue through legislation instead, but changing the citizenship rule that way would likely require a constitutional amendment given how the Court just interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, a very high bar that has not been attempted in decades.