Supreme Court hears oral argument on Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship

The Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on Wednesday morning on one of the most important cases of the age, one that’s expected to define who gets to be a citizen of the United States.

Arguments in Trump vs. Barbara started at about 10 a.m. A ruling is expected this summer. The president traveled to the court to hear the arguments in person.

Chief Justice John Roberts quickly said that it was not clear how the recognized exceptions to citizenship, such as the children of ambassadors and foreign invaders, can be applied to “a whole class of illegal aliens.”

Roberts says he wasn’t sure “how you get to that big group from such tiny and idiosyncratic examples.”

President Donald Trump wants to overturn long-established law that says anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen – and to deny citizenship to children born here to undocumented parents.

The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling “will set the course of our country for generations to come,” said Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition. “This decision will not just affect immigrants and children of immigrants, but everyone who calls the United States of America their home.”

Given the gravity, she said, the coalition is hopeful that “birthright citizenship remains intact and protected.”

Trump argues that automatic U.S. citizenship encourages people to enter the country without permission, including for so-called birth tourism, where families arrange to give birth to their children while visiting the U.S.

On the day he was inaugurated in 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants born in this country.

The ACLU sued within hours, and New Jersey officials went to court the next day, with then-Attorney General Matt Platkin proclaiming, “Presidents in this country have broad powers, but they are not kings.”

Wednesday’s argument represents the first time that the Supreme Court will officially consider the legality of Trump’s executive order.

Birthright citizenship, simply explained, is the legal foundation under which American citizenship is automatically conferred upon people who are born in the United States. The formal term is jus soli, Latin for “right of the soil.” Automatic citizenship also extends to children who are born abroad to U.S. citizens.

Birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the Constitution by the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, after the end of the Civil War. It says 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 and other opponents argue that the practice entices people to enter the country illegally, so that children who are born here will automatically gain American citizenship. Those citizens, at age 21, can sponsor close family members to live permanently in the United States.

The Trump administration contends that birthright citizenship had limited intent, meant only to ensure that formerly enslaved people and their children were U.S. citizens.

The administration has focused on the clause, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” saying that excludes people with temporary or unlawful presence. The president’s order would deny citizenship to babies born in the U.S. unless at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the birth.

Trump’s opponents say reliance on those five words makes no sense, that of course people in the United States without permission are subject to its jurisdiction ― its laws, orders and government regulations ― the same as everyone else.

In Pennsylvania, all eight Democratic federal lawmakers who represent the state have opposed Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.

Along with 208 other Democrats in Congress, they signed an amicus brief in February that argued the 14th Amendment set a “constitutional minimum — a floor — for birthright citizenship,” and that the administration’s arguments were incoherent.

They wrote that Trump, ignoring their authority as lawmakers, had overstepped after decades of failed attempts to change the law by constitutional means.

Pennsylvania Democrats who signed the brief were U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, and U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle, Dwight Evans, Madeleine Dean, Mary Gay Scanlon, Chrissy Houlahan, Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio.

Boyle said in a statement before Wednesday’s arguments that “the Constitution is crystal clear that anyone born in America is, by birthright, a citizen.”

Trump and his administration “fundamentally do not believe in the American Experiment,” Boyle said.

Some Republicans in Congress have filed amicus briefs supporting Trump’s case, though none of the 11 Republicans representing Pennsylvania have signed on to them.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) — Trump allies who have leadership positions in their respective chambers’ Judiciary committees — led a brief in January with 26 other congressional Republicans that supported the administration’s argument that the intent of the 14th Amendment was limited.

“The Framers chose to limit birthright citizenship to persons ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States. It was a common-sense choice, based on considerations of sovereignty and loyalty,” the Republicans wrote. “The Framers would have recoiled at the present debasement of citizenship, understanding that ‘jurisdiction’ requires more than mere physical presence. It demands total allegiance to the sovereign. To hold otherwise places sovereignty, citizenship, and our nation’s survival in jeopardy.”

The ACLU argues that ending birthright citizenship would upend established law along with the lives of hundreds of thousands of families, creating a permanent subclass of U.S.-born children who would be denied rights as Americans.

Defenders of birthright citizenship point to the defining Supreme Court ruling in the matter ― the United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held in 1898 that children born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Wong Kim Ark was a Chinese American cook, born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. In 1890, both parents returned to China, and Wong, about 21, visited them there the same year. On his return, he was admitted into the U.S. on the sole grounds that he was a native-born American citizen.

Four years later in 1894, at about 25, Wong again traveled to China. But when he returned in 1895, he was denied entry by Customs officials who ruled that he was not a citizen and could be immediately deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The 1882 Exclusion Act banned immigration from China amid a perceived “invasion” of supposedly job-stealing newcomers. Chinese immigrants faced widespread violence and forced expulsions from their communities amid a racist “Yellow Peril” narrative.

The Supreme Court affirmed Wong’s citizenship in 1898, citing his birth on American soil. That his parents were not citizens, and in fact were subjects of the Chinese emperor, did not matter, the court ruled.

To deny Wong his citizenship, the court said, “would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.”

“If the court agrees with the administration on how to read Wong Kim Ark, that still doesn’t answer who can make the determination to end birthright citizenship for certain categories of people,” said Carol Nackenoff, Swarthmore College Richter Professor Emerita of Political Science and the author of American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship. “It is highly possible the court could say: this isn’t among the powers of the Executive. I don’t think they will buy the argument that earlier presidential administrations just got it wrong.”

The court could say that Congress could fix the problem by amending the Immigration and Nationality Act, the main body of laws that govern immigration to the U.S.

Birthright citizenship does come with some limited exceptions.

The children of foreign diplomats do not automatically acquire citizenship, as their parents’ immunity means they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Also, were the U.S. to be militarily invaded, children born to members of that “hostile occupation” would not be citizens. Native Americans in this country were not automatically granted citizenship until 1924.

As of 2026, 36 nations around the world have unrestricted birthright citizenship, and another 45 have some form of restricted citizenship, according to World Population Review.

Nearly all the countries with unrestricted citizenship are in North or South America, stemming from the time when European colonial powers welcomed immigrants in order to populate their settlements. Other countries may offer citizenship based on parentage, generally to children where one or both parents are citizens.