The United States Supreme Court is due to rule on Tuesday on whether to let President Donald Trump restrict birthright citizenship in the US — one of the top priorities in his crackdown on immigration — in a case involving a right that had long been woven into the fabric of American society. A lower court blocked Trump's executive order directing US agencies not to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither parent is an American citizen or legal permanent resident, also called a "green card" holder. Tuesday is the final day of rulings for the court's current term, which began in October.
Legal Challenge and Constitutional Basis
Challengers to Trump's order argued that it violates language in the US Constitution's 14th Amendment that confers citizenship to those born in the US who are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Trump, who has repeatedly tested the limits of presidential power in domestic and foreign policy, issued the order last year on his first day back in office as part of a suite of policies to crack down on legal and illegal immigration. Critics have accused the Republican president of racial and religious discrimination in his approach to immigration. The Supreme Court weighs in on what it means to be an American citizen just ahead of the July 4 holiday, when the US marks the 250th anniversary of its founding.
Ahead of the ruling, some experts had estimated that Trump's directive could affect the legal status of as many as 250,000 babies born each year and could require the families of millions more to prove the citizenship status of their newborns. The legal challenge to Trump's directive, considered by the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, involved a class-action lawsuit filed in New Hampshire by parents and children whose citizenship was threatened by the directive.
The 14th Amendment and Historical Precedent
The 14th Amendment has long been interpreted as guaranteeing citizenship for babies born in the US, with only narrow exceptions such as the children of foreign diplomats or members of an enemy occupying force. The provision at issue, known as the Citizenship Clause, 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 administration has asserted that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means that being born in the US is not enough for citizenship, and excludes the babies of immigrants who are in the country illegally or whose presence is lawful but temporary, such as university students or those on work visas. Citizenship is granted only to the children of those whose "primary allegiance" is to the US, including citizens and permanent residents, the administration has argued. Such allegiance is established through "lawful domicile," which lawyers for the administration define as "lawful, permanent residence within a nation, with intent to remain."
When the Supreme Court considered the case on April 1, Trump made history as the first sitting president to attend arguments before the top US judicial body, though he left midway through, not long after the lawyer arguing against the administration had begun.
Birth Tourism and Government Arguments
During the arguments, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the administration, said the promise of citizenship for virtually any baby born on US soil has spawned what he called a sprawling industry of "birth tourism." Sauer said that "uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades" to secure citizenship for their children. Asked to explain how serious an issue "birth tourism" has become, Sauer primarily cited media reports and conceded that "no one knows for sure."
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 that ended slavery in the US, and overturned a notorious 1857 Supreme Court decision that had declared that people of African descent could never be US citizens. During arguments, Sauer described what he saw as the limited purpose of the 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause, saying it was adopted "to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children, whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile here."
The 1898 Precedent and Judicial Pushback
The challengers said the Supreme Court already had settled the question of birthright citizenship in an 1898 case called United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which recognised that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship by birth on US soil, including to the children of foreign nationals. The administration contended that the 1898 precedent supported Trump's order because, according to the court's ruling in that case, at the time of his birth, Wong Kim Ark's parents had permanent domicile and residence in the US. Some of the justices pushed back on that during arguments, with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch telling Sauer: "Well, I'm not sure how much you want to rely on Wong Kim Ark."
Trump, for years, had threatened to limit who qualifies for citizenship at birth. Trump wrote on social media last year: "Birthright citizenship was not meant for people taking vacations to become permanent citizens of the United States of America, and bringing their families with them, all the time laughing at the 'suckers' that we are!" He added: "But the drug cartels love it! We are, for the sake of being politically correct, a stupid country but, in actuality, this is the exact opposite of being politically correct, and it is yet another point that leads to the dysfunction of America."
Concord, New Hampshire-based US District Judge Joseph Laplante, in July 2025, let the challenge to Trump's order by the plaintiffs in the case before him proceed as a class, thus allowing the policy to be blocked nationwide. The Supreme Court last year gave Trump an initial victory in the birthright citizenship context in a ruling restricting the power of federal judges to curb presidential policies nationwide. That decision, however, did not resolve the legality of Trump's directive.
Immigration Rulings and Broader Context
The court's conservative majority has backed Trump on other major immigration-related policies since he returned to the presidency. For instance, the court on June 25 cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants of a humanitarian status that protects them from deportation. On the same day, it sided with him by backing the US government's authority to turn away asylum seekers when officials deem the US-Mexico border crossings too overburdened to handle additional claims. In other cases, it let Trump expand mass deportation measures on an interim basis while legal challenges play out, such as ending humanitarian protections for certain migrants, deporting people to countries where they have no ties and carrying out aggressive immigration raids that can target individuals based on their race or language.
The court, however, has not always ruled in Trump's favour. In February, it struck down sweeping tariffs he pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies. And on Monday, it refused to let him fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
Transgender Sports Legality
The US Supreme Court is also set to decide the legality of state laws in West Virginia and Idaho banning transgender student athletes from female sports teams at public schools, including universities, a contentious issue enmeshed in the nation's culture wars. Lower courts sided with transgender students who challenged the bans as violating the US Constitution and a federal anti-discrimination law. The Idaho and West Virginia laws designate sports teams at public schools, including universities, according to "biological sex" and bar "students of the male sex" from female teams. Twenty-five other states have similar laws on the books.
Trump's administration, which has cracked down on transgender rights, has backed the states in the litigation. Idaho and West Virginia said the laws preserve fair and safe competition for women and girls, while critics see the measures as part of a broader assault on the rights of transgender Americans. The students who challenged the measures said they discriminate based on a person's sex or status as transgender in violation of the Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law, as well as the Title IX civil rights statute that bars discrimination in education "on the basis of sex."
Major 2025 Ruling
In another major transgender rights ruling, the Supreme Court in a case from Tennessee last year let states ban medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones for people under age 18 experiencing gender dysphoria. That term refers to the clinical diagnosis for significant distress that can result from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and sex at birth. The Supreme Court has backed other restrictions on transgender people, letting Trump ban transgender people from the military and bar passport applicants from selecting the sex reflecting their gender identities for the document. The court in 2020 delivered a landmark ruling protecting transgender people from workplace discrimination under a federal law called Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which contains wording similar to Title IX.
Trump's Policies on Transgender Rights
The issue of transgender athletes playing on female sports teams has become part of the US culture wars. Trump has taken a hard line on transgender rights since returning to office in January 2025. He has cast the gender identity of transgender people as a lie and issued multiple executive orders to limit their rights, including one involving sports participation. The challenge to West Virginia's law was brought by Becky Pepper-Jackson and her mother, Heather Jackson. Pepper-Jackson attends high school in Bridgeport, West Virginia and participates in shot put and discus. The Idaho challenge was brought by Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student who previously participated in football and running clubs at Boise State University, a public university. Hecox decided to quit playing sports and sought to dismiss the case in part due to a fear of harassment and growing intolerance toward transgender people. Hecox's lawyers argued that the development rendered this challenge moot. The Supreme Court heard arguments in January. Its conservative justices raised concerns about imposing a uniform rule on the entire country amid disagreement and uncertainty over whether medications like puberty blockers or gender-affirming hormones eliminate male physiological advantages in sports.
