(Staff post from the ABC NEWS AUSTRALIA on 01 July 2026.)
US
Supreme Court rejects Donald Trump's bid to restrict birthright citizenship: The
US Supreme Court has rejected Donald Trump's bid to overturn birthright
citizenship.
It
is a major blow to the US president's hardline agenda on immigration and comes
after the same court earlier this year limited his ability to impose sweeping
tariffs. What's next? Mr Trump has urged Congress to implement legislation to
end birthright citizenship, despite the court finding it was a constitutional
right.
Donald Trump's controversial attempt to restrict birthright citizenship in the US has been rejected by the Supreme Court, up-ending the president's hardline agenda on immigration. The 6-3 ruling marked the second time this year that the court has invalidated one of Mr Trump's major initiatives, following its February decision to strike down his sweeping global tariffs.
The
justices upheld a lower court's decision that blocked Mr 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.
What
does birthright citizenship mean? Donald Trump's fight to end automatic
citizenship for people born on US soil has reached the Supreme Court, with
justices grappling with whether to maintain a freeze on his attempt.
Challengers
to Mr Trump's order argued that it violated the language of the US
Constitution's 14th Amendment, which conferred citizenship on those born in
America who were "subject to the jurisdiction thereof".
Mr 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.
Mr
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the ruling on birthright
citizenship was "too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in
Congress through Legislation".
"No
long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start
TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright
Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!" Mr Trump
wrote.
The
challengers said the Supreme Court had already 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.
Conservative
Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored Tuesday's ruling, pointed to that 1898
ruling. "Not surprisingly, then, in the 128 years since, we have
repeatedly understood the rule of Wong Kim Ark to guarantee citizenship to all
children born in the United States and subject to its power," Justice
Roberts wrote. "We see no reason to depart from that view today."
Justice Roberts said there was "scant evidence" to support the Trump administration's "dramatically revisionist view" of how to interpret the citizenship language of the 14th Amendment to limit birthright citizenship.
"If
Congress intended to limit American citizenship to the children of those
domiciled in the United States, nothing in the succinct language of the
Citizenship Clause conveyed that design," Justice Roberts wrote.
The
Supreme Court has weighed in on what it means to be an American citizen just
ahead of the July 4 holiday, when the United States will mark the 250th
anniversary of its founding. Ahead of the ruling, some experts had estimated
that Mr 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.
Class-action lawsuit
The
legal challenge to Mr 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 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 United States, 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, Mr 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 speaking.
The
Supreme Court last year gave Mr Trump an initial victory in the birthright
citizenship context, in a ruling that restricted the power of federal judges to
curb presidential policies nationwide. That decision, however, did not resolve
the legality of Mr Trump's directive.
Democratic
state attorneys-general who had pursued their own legal challenge to Mr Trump's
birthright citizenship executive order hailed the Supreme Court's decision.
"Today's
decision affirms a foundational tenet of American democracy: that every child
born in this country, no matter their background, is equal under the law and
can pursue the American Dream," California Attorney-General Rob Bonta said
in a statement.
New
York Attorney-General Letitia James, in a statement, called birthright
citizenship "a constitutional guarantee that has defined this nation for
generations."
'Birth tourism'
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 had spawned what he called a sprawling industry of "birth tourism". Until now, Donald Trump has been one of the most unstoppable presidents ever. But the Supreme Court's tariffs decision proves there are limits to his power.
Mr 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" had become, Mr 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".
An 1898 precedent
The
administration contended that the 1898 precedent supported Mr 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".
The
US president says he is "absolutely ashamed" of members of the court
who struck down his global tariffs after finding he lacked the authority to
implement them. Mr Trump, for years, had threatened to limit who qualifies for
citizenship at birth.
The
president 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!"
"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," Mr Trump wrote.
Concord,
New Hampshire-based US District Judge Joseph Laplante, in July 2025, allowed
the plaintiffs' challenge to Mr Trump's order to proceed as a class, thus
allowing the policy to be blocked nationwide.
Immigration rulings
The
court's conservative majority has backed Mr 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 protected 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 deemed 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 played 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 Mr Trump's favour. In February, it
struck down sweeping tariffs he pursued under a law meant for use in national
emergencies. And on Monday, local time, it refused to let him fire Federal
Reserve governor Lisa Cook.
Tuesday
was the final day of rulings for the court's current term, which began in
October.
