Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid to End Birthright Citizenship
The United States Supreme Court has delivered a major defeat to President Donald Trump, rejecting his administration's bid to end birthright citizenship and leaving intact one of the most consequential guarantees in American law.
At issue was the principle, rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment, that nearly all children born on U.S. soil are automatically citizens regardless of their parents' immigration status. The administration had sought to reinterpret that guarantee, arguing it should not extend to the children of parents in the country unlawfully. The justices declined to endorse that view, keeping the established understanding in place.
Birthright citizenship has been settled doctrine for well over a century, tracing to the amendment's post-Civil War ratification and reaffirmed by the courts across generations. Any move to narrow it would have redefined citizenship for a significant share of children born in the country each year and touched families across every state.
The ruling lands as one of the highest-profile decisions of the term and a direct check on a central plank of the administration's immigration agenda. For the millions of families potentially affected, it removes, at least for now, a cloud of uncertainty over the status of children born in the United States.
The decision is likely to reverberate through American politics well beyond the courtroom, sharpening an already fierce national debate over immigration, citizenship and the reach of executive power.
