U.S. President Donald Trump has defended his efforts to end automatic birthright citizenship, insisting that the constitutional provision was originally intended to protect the children of formerly enslaved people, not the children of wealthy foreign nationals or undocumented immigrants.
Trump made the remarks while speaking at the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his attempt to end automatic citizenship for certain children born in the United States.
According to the president, the court misinterpreted the purpose of the Citizenship Clause contained in the Fourteenth Amendment.
“We’ll take care of the birthright citizenship because that was not meant for rich people from other countries. It was meant for the babies of slaves. I know they got it wrong,” Trump said.
Trump argued that the amendment, adopted after the American Civil War, was specifically designed to guarantee citizenship for the children of formerly enslaved people rather than children born to foreign visitors, temporary visa holders, or undocumented immigrants.
Although acknowledging the Supreme Court’s decision, the president maintained that his administration would continue pursuing changes to the policy.
“We’ll work it out some way,” he added.
Vice President JD Vance also criticised the ruling, arguing that the justices had misread the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment.
According to Vance, the amendment’s framers did not intend for automatic citizenship to extend to children born to undocumented immigrants or tourists visiting the United States.
The Supreme Court’s decision reaffirmed that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees U.S. citizenship to eligible children born on American soil, effectively blocking Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship. The ruling represents a significant legal setback for the administration’s long-running efforts to reshape U.S. immigration policy.
