Trump Administration Appeals to Supreme Court to End Birthright Citizenship

The Trump administration has formally appealed to the United States Supreme Court to reinstate an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for children born in the country to undocumented immigrants and temporary visa holders.

The executive order, signed by President Donald Trump in January after returning to office, seeks to reinterpret the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. It argues that citizenship should not be granted automatically to those born to parents without lawful immigration status. 

Several federal courts, including those in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state, have issued injunctions blocking the order, stating that it likely violates constitutional protections. At the centre of the legal dispute is the interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which guarantees citizenship to “all persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” 

The administration maintains that this clause does not apply to children of parents who are not lawful permanent residents, asserting that such individuals are not fully subject to US jurisdiction. In its petition to the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice argued that the injunctions have halted a policy it views as critical to national security and immigration enforcement. 

The department further claimed that by blocking the order, the courts have extended citizenship to “hundreds of thousands of unqualified people,” thereby weakening the country’s immigration system. A Supreme Court ruling in June limited the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions against presidential orders. 

While courts can still apply injunctions to specific plaintiffs, broader nationwide bans have been restricted. The Justice Department now seeks a conclusive ruling when the Supreme Court’s new term begins on 6 October. According to Pew Research, about 250,000 children were born to undocumented immigrants in the US in 2016, down from a peak in 2007. 

By 2022, the number of US-born citizens with at least one undocumented parent had reached 1.2 million. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that repealing birthright citizenship could increase the population of unauthorised immigrants to 4.7 million by 2050, as subsequent generations also lose automatic citizenship.

President Trump has defended the order, stating in a December interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that he supports deporting families together, including children born in the United States. 

“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” he said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”