Supreme Court to weigh birthright citizenship in major test of Trump’s immigration agenda

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will weigh a high-stakes immigration case over birthright citizenship that the White House says will have “enormous consequences” for the public.

The case, Trump v. Barbara, centers around President Donald Trump’s executive order last year declaring that children born after Feb. 20, 2025 to parents in the U.S. illegally or temporarily are not entitled to citizenship. Lower courts blocked the order before it took effect, and the Supreme Court will hear arguments over the legal questions just weeks after it struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

“The Supreme Court has the opportunity to review the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and restore the meaning of citizenship in the United States to its original public meaning,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Lion ahead of oral arguments on Wednesday. “This case will have enormous consequences for the security of all Americans. The Trump Administration looks forward to making its case on the issue of birthright citizenship on behalf of the American people.”

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868 following the Civil War, states that “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.”

Trump’s legal argument hinges on just six key words of the amendment, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” as he contends that the longstanding guarantee of birthright citizenship rests on a flawed understanding of those words.

“The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause was adopted to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children,” Trump’s brief before the court reads, “not, as respondents maintain, to the children of aliens illegally or temporarily in the United States.” 

The clause only grants birthright citizenship to those who are both born in the U.S. and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” Trump’s brief notes. “The original meaning of the jurisdictional requirement excludes individuals – such as children of illegal or temporarily present aliens – who are not ‘completely subject’ to the United States’ ‘political jurisdiction’ i.e., who do not owe it ‘direct and immediate allegiance.’”

Plaintiffs challenging Trump, parents whose children would be subject to the executive order, argue that barring U.S.-born children from becoming citizens based on their parents’ lack of “permanent immigration status” is blatantly contrary to the 14th Amendment. The citizenship clause is already settled law, they argue, citing an 1898 Supreme Court ruling that safeguards “U.S. citizenship at birth for all persons born in this country, with only a handful of exceptions

not applicable here.” The plaintiffs also point to Congress codifying the citizenship clause in both 1940 and 1952.

The executive order is “squarely contrary to the constitutional text, this Court’s precedents, Congress’s dictates, longstanding Executive Branch practice, scholarly consensus, and well over a century of our nation’s everyday practice,” their brief reads, noting that Congress codified the citizenship clause in 1940 and 1952.

Wednesday’s arguments are expected to be closely watched as a major test of Trump’s immigration agenda in his second term, and a decision is expected by June or July.

On Tuesday, Trump told Fox News’ Peter Doocy, “I’m going. …Because I have listened to this argument for so long… This was about slaves, and if you take a look, slaves, we’re talking about slaves from the Civil War, and if you take a look at when it was filed, all of this legislation, all of this, everything, having to do with birthright citizenship, it was at the end of the Civil War.”