Trump signs new executive orders challenging birthright citizenship after Supreme Court loss

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Trump Tests Birthright Citizenship Again After Supreme Court Loss

Publication Date: 2026-08-15 17:38:33

President Donald Trump has recently made another attempt to challenge birthright citizenship. While he may disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling, he is not entitled to treat a constitutional judgment as a mere negotiating position.

The Supreme Court Ruling

On June 30, in Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court ruled 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 therefore citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment. The judgment was 6–3.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for five justices on the constitutional question, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh supplied the sixth vote on statutory grounds. While that distinction may be important, it does not change the bottom line: Trump’s 2025 executive order failed, and birthright citizenship survived.

The Court’s language was emphatic. Roberts recalled that Reconstruction-era lawmakers sought to settle the question of citizenship “once and forever [to] rest.” Near the conclusion, he described citizenship as “the right to have rights” and declared: “We keep that promise today.”

Trump’s Response: Two New Executive Orders

Five weeks later, Trump signed two new executive orders:

• Ending Birth Tourism – Directs the Departments of State and Homeland Security to take stronger measures against people using temporary visas to enter the United States principally to give birth.
• Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship – Identifies additional categories of children whom the administration says should not receive citizenship at birth, including some children of alleged “alien enemies,” foreign government employees, and parents involved in commercial arrangements intended to obtain birthright citizenship.

The first order principally raises an immigration-enforcement question. The second ventures directly back into the constitutional ground the Supreme Court addressed only weeks ago.

Enforcing Visa Laws – No Problem

There is nothing inherently improper about enforcing visa laws. Existing regulations already provide that obtaining a visitor visa primarily to give birth in the United States to secure citizenship for a child is not legitimate B-visa tourism. They also create a presumption against applicants believed to be traveling primarily for that purpose.

Enforce those rules. Investigate fraud. Deny visas where applicants do not qualify. Prosecute criminal schemes where the evidence warrants it. But that is a different question from citizenship. The government can regulate who may enter the country. It can punish fraud by parents or businesses. What it cannot do is transform misconduct by a parent into a constitutional disability for a newborn child.

That is the line the administration continues to blur.

The 14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment does not say citizenship belongs only to children of lawful permanent residents, or only to children whose parents behaved properly, told the truth on visa applications, or entered with motives the government approves. It grants citizenship to persons born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, period.

Congress incorporated essentially the same formula in 8 U.S.C. §1401(a), declaring a person born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction a citizen at birth. That statutory protection mattered especially to Justice Kavanaugh. He disagreed with the majority’s constitutional interpretation but concluded that Trump’s earlier executive order could not stand because it conflicted with §1401(a). Congress, he wrote in substance, had not enacted the additional exceptions the administration wanted.

Changing Labels

Even by...