The US Supreme Court has upheld the principle of birthright citizenship, ruling against President Donald Trump’s attempt to change who counts as an American citizen at birth.
On Tuesday, the court rejected an executive order from Trump that sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or on a temporary basis.
The court, on the final day of its term, ruled 6-3 to maintain the right to American citizenship for nearly everyone born on US soil.
The ruling keeps in place the long-standing judicial reading of the 14th Amendment, which has historically guaranteed citizenship to those born on American soil.
The amendment was originally intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, although the Citizenship Clause itself is written more broadly. It states: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration had argued that the widely accepted view of citizenship is mistaken. Officials claimed that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are therefore not entitled to citizenship.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, forms part of his administration’s broader immigration crackdown. It was also the first of Trump’s immigration-related policies to reach the Supreme Court for a final ruling.
