Background
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order No. 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” directing that children born in the United States to mothers who are unlawfully present—or to mothers who are lawfully but only temporarily present—are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, and therefore do not acquire citizenship at birth. The order applied the same interpretation to the parallel language in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Several parents, some suing on their own behalf and others in the names of their children, challenged the order as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the INA. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire agreed, provisionally certified a nationwide class of children who would be denied citizenship under the order, and entered a preliminary injunction against its enforcement. The government sought review before the First Circuit could rule.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment, taking the case directly from the district court. The Court heard oral argument on April 1, 2026, and issued its decision on June 30, 2026. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a five-Justice majority joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson. Justice Jackson filed a concurrence joined in part by Justice Sotomayor. Justice Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment but dissented in part, while Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch filed dissents.
The Court’s Holding
The Court affirmed the district court and held that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are therefore citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts grounded the holding in the English common law doctrine of jus soli—right of the soil—which made citizenship a product of birthplace, not parentage. Under that rule, a child born within the sovereign’s dominions owed natural allegiance to the sovereign who protected it at birth, however brief the parents’ presence. The Court traced that doctrine through American independence, concluding that jus soli prevailed in each of the states and extended even to children of foreign nationals on temporary sojourn.
The majority explained that the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted precisely to repudiate Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had substituted blood for soil as the touchstone of citizenship. The Citizenship Clause’s key phrase—”subject to the jurisdiction”—was read to mean the full and complete power of the United States to govern those within its territory, as Chief Justice Marshall described that power in Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon (1812). The only recognized exceptions—for children of foreign ambassadors and others cloaked by a fiction of extraterritoriality—are narrow and do not encompass private individuals, whether lawfully or unlawfully present. The Court found this understanding confirmed by United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which held that the Fourteenth Amendment was “declaratory” of the common law birthright rule and applied it to children of permanent residents and temporary visitors alike.
The majority rejected the government’s argument that “subject to the jurisdiction” incorporates a domicile requirement—i.e., that only children of parents permanently domiciled in the United States qualify. The Court found no meaningful evidence in the text, the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, or the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment that the ratifiers intended to import a domicile limitation. The words “mother,” “father,” “lawful,” and “temporary”—all central to the Executive Order—appear nowhere in the Citizenship Clause. Because the Executive Order rested on a reading of the Clause the Court unanimously rejected in Wong Kim Ark, the order was held unconstitutional.
Key Takeaways
- Executive Order 14160, which sought to deny birthright citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants or temporary visa holders, is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
- The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the territorial governing power of the United States and is satisfied by birth on U.S. soil; it does not require the parents to be lawfully present, permanently resident, or domiciled in the country.
- The Court reaffirmed United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) as controlling precedent and rejected attempts to limit that decision to children of permanent residents.
- The narrow exceptions to birthright citizenship—children of foreign ambassadors and others accorded extraterritorial status—remain intact but are not extended to undocumented or visa-holding parents.
- The decision was 5-4 on the merits, with the Chief Justice writing for a cross-ideological majority; Justice Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment while three Justices dissented, signaling ongoing disagreement over the Clause’s scope.
Why It Matters
This is the most significant birthright citizenship ruling since Wong Kim Ark over a century ago, and it forecloses the primary legal theory the executive branch had advanced to restrict automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children of noncitizens. For practitioners in immigration law, federal litigation, and constitutional law, the decision settles—at least for now—that the President cannot redefine the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment through executive order. Any future effort to limit birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment.
The ruling also carries immediate practical stakes for the hundreds of thousands of children born annually in the United States to undocumented or temporary-visa-holding parents. The nationwide class certification and preliminary injunction entered below remain operative pending any further proceedings on remand, meaning no child affected by the order should have been stripped of citizenship while the litigation was pending. Attorneys advising clients in removal proceedings, visa applications, or passport matters involving U.S.-born children of noncitizens should note that the district court’s injunction covered a certified nationwide class and that the Supreme Court’s affirmance resolves the underlying constitutional question on the merits.