The Supreme Court will rule Tuesday morning on the legality of Trump’s executive order, which says babies born in the U.S. cannot automatically be granted citizenship if neither of their parents are citizens or permanent residents.
Trump, then running in the GOP presidential primary, released his immigration plan, which called for an end to birthright citizenship and claimed the practice “remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.”
In an interview with Fox News, Trump falsely claimed children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants “do not have American citizenship” and pledged to “start a process where we take back our country,” claiming birthright citizenship “will have to be tested” and “many lawyers … say it will not hold up in court.”
Trump claimed the U.S. was unique in having birthright citizenship—which is false, as dozens of other countries also guarantee citizenship by birth—saying at a rally, “We’re the only place, just about, that’s stupid enough to do it.”
Trump repeatedly continued to decry birthright citizenship on the campaign trail, including at a rally in Orlando, Florida, where he said the practice was “over” and “not gonna happen.”
Trump continued to oppose birthright citizenship in office and told “Axios on HBO” he intended to issue an executive order to end it, saying the order—which ultimately didn’t happen in Trump’s first term—was “in the process.”
The president claimed to Axios that he could restrict birthright citizenship via executive order, saying, “It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t.”
Trump defended his comments on birthright citizenship to reporters, claiming he learned he could restrict it via executive order “after meeting with some very talented legal scholars,” though he would “rather” change the practice “through Congress, because that’s permanent.”
While Trump did not fully restrict birthright citizenship, his first administration issued a rule in January 2020 in which the State Department stopped giving tourist visas to people engaging in “birth tourism,” part of a crackdown on people traveling to the U.S. to give birth and secure citizenship for their child—a key argument Trump and Republicans have made for why birthright citizenship needs to be restricted.
Trump continued his push to end birthright citizenship during his 2024 presidential race, saying in a video released in May 2023 as part of his “Agenda47” platform he would sign an executive order “making clear to federal agencies … the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship.”
In an interview with “Meet the Press” after winning the 2024 election, Trump responded, “Absolutely,” when asked if he still planned to end birthright citizenship on “day one” of his presidency.
The president said he would change birthright citizenship through an executive order “if we can,” claiming he intended to do so during his first presidency, “but then we had to fix COVID first.”
Trump issued his executive order on birthright citizenship as one of his first acts upon taking office, saying as he signed the order that the practice was “ridiculous.”
Trump was asked whether he thought the order could be overturned in court, responding that it “could be, I think we have good grounds, but you could be right.”
Trump defended his executive order to reporters in the Oval Office, claiming the policy was initially for the “children of slaves” and “wasn’t meant for the entire world to occupy the United States”—and predicted the Supreme Court would back the order, saying, “I think we’re going to win that case and I look forward to winning it.”
Trump posted about birthright citizenship on Truth Social as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether judges were allowed to block the policy nationwide, saying 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!”
After the Supreme Court ruled in that case—determining judges couldn’t block policies nationwide, but sidestepping the legality of Trump’s executive order itself—Trump hailed the ruling as a “GIANT WIN,” writing on Truth Social, “Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard” and claiming citizenship by birth was a “SCAMMING of our Immigration process.”
Trump predicted the Supreme Court would rule against him on birthright citizenship after the court struck down his sweeping tariff policy, musing the justices “will find a way to come to the wrong conclusion” on birthright citizenship following their “ridiculous” tariff ruling.
Trump attended a portion of the oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case—becoming the first known president to attend Supreme Court arguments—and continued to attack the current policy, saying in a statement on Truth Social, “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America.”
Trump again predicted he “will lose” the birthright citizenship case at the Supreme Court, calling the current birthright citizenship policy “a disaster for the United States of America” and claiming “no Country can be successful with such an anchor wrapped firmly around its neck.”
In a lengthy Truth Social post slamming the right-leaning justices who had opposed him on tariffs, Trump again predicted the court would rule against him on birthright citizenship and wrote that while he doesn’t “want loyalty” from justices, “I do want and expect it for our Country.”
The president went on to claim a “negative ruling on Birthright Citizenship, on top of the recent Supreme Court Tariff catastrophe, is not Economically sustainable for the United States of America!”
Trump has continued to repeatedly slam birthright citizenship ahead of the Supreme Court’s expected ruling, writing on Truth Social on June 11, “The United States of America cannot live with the shackles of Birthright Citizenship. It is not economically, or otherwise, sustainable, and no other Country in the World, of consequence, does it!”
The Supreme Court will issue its final decisions of the term, including the birthright citizenship ruling, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. In addition to the birthright citizenship case, the court is also expected to rule on the legality of state bans on transgender women in school sports, and in a campaign finance case.
255,000. That’s the approximate number of children who would be denied citizenship each year if Trump’s order takes effect, according to the Migration Policy Institute and Penn State’s Population Research Institute.
Trump’s order on birthright citizenship is part of the president’s broader crackdown on immigration, which has similarly been taking place since before his first term. The president made headlines when he first announced his candidacy in 2015, when he claimed Mexico was “sending us not the right people” and announced his intention to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump has gone on to institute a number of controversial immigration policies over the course of his two presidential terms, including a travel ban on people from a number of countries, a “family separation” policy in which parents were prosecuted after crossing the border and split up from their children, and a number of restrictions on legal immigration pathways like asylum and refugee admissions. His administration has also ramped up efforts to detain undocumented immigrants in Trump’s second term, leading to nationwide protests. The Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship comes days after the 6-3 conservative court ruled in Trump’s favor in two other immigration cases last week, greenlighting the president’s policy of turning away asylum seekers before they reach the U.S.-Mexico border and the White House ending temporary protections for Haitian and Syrian nationals.
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