Supreme Court hears high-profile fight over Trump's bid to limit
birthright citizenship
[April 01, 2026]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up one of the term's most
consequential cases, President Donald Trump’s executive order on
birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are
in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
Trump plans to be in attendance.
In arguments Wednesday, the justices will hear 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. They have
not taken effect anywhere in the country.
A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.
Trump will be the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at
the nation’s highest court.
The case frames another test of his assertions of executive power that
defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the
president's favor, but with some notable exceptions that Trump has
responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of
his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad
immigration crackdown.
Birthright citizenship is 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 reacted furiously to the late February tariffs' decision, saying
he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them
unpatriotic.
He issued a preemptive broadside against the court on Sunday on his
Truth Social. “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from
China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds
of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the
United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!,” the
president wrote. “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country
make!”
Trump's order would upend the longstanding view that the Constitution’s
14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer
citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions
for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign
occupying force.
The 14th 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.
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President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after
signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House
Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard
Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the
executive order as illegal, or likely so, under the Constitution and
federal law. The decisions have invoked the high court's 1898 ruling
in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese
nationals was a citizen.
The administration argues that the common view of citizenship is
wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to
the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to
citizenship.
The court should use the case to set straight “long-enduring
misconceptions about the Constitution’s meaning,” Solicitor General
D. John Sauer wrote.
No court has accepted that argument, and lawyers for pregnant women
whose children would be affected by the order said the Supreme Court
should not be the first to do so.
“We have the president of the United States trying to radically
reinterpret the definition of American citizenship,” said Cecillia
Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director who is
facing off against Sauer at the Supreme Court.
More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year
would be 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 restrictions also would apply
to people who are legally in the United States, including students
and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.
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