The Birthright Decision Was Surprisingly Close, Some Legal Scholars S…

Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship, Strikes Down Trump Executive Order in 6-3 Decision

July 1, 2026

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 6-3 that President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship violated the 14th Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion, which held that the amendment’s citizenship clause applies to nearly all individuals born in the United States.

The 14th Amendment states 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.” The majority opinion relied on this text and on prior judicial interpretations to conclude that the executive order exceeded presidential authority.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joined the judgment striking down the order but wrote separately to base his conclusion on a federal statute rather than on a direct application of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. The remaining five justices in the majority joined Chief Justice Roberts’s constitutional analysis.

Four justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh—expressed the view that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship as a constitutional matter on children of certain noncitizen parents. Their opinions addressed the meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and examined historical evidence from the period of the amendment’s adoption.

The decision leaves in place the long-standing administrative practice of recognizing citizenship for most children born on U.S. soil. Lower courts had already blocked the executive order, and the Supreme Court’s ruling ends the litigation over its validity.

Legal scholars offered differing assessments of the vote breakdown. Bethany Li, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which submitted an amicus brief opposing the order, stated that the outcome aligned with more than a century of precedent and should have been unanimous. Ilan Wurman, a University of Minnesota law professor who filed an amicus brief supporting the order, described the four votes aligned with the administration’s narrower reading of the citizenship clause as significant given prior academic debate.

John Yoo, a Berkeley law professor and former Justice Department official, said Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion was written in declarative terms that treat the constitutional question as settled for the foreseeable future. Amanda L. Tyler, also at Berkeley, noted that similar challenges in earlier eras, including a 1942 lawsuit by the Native Sons of the Golden West concerning citizenship of persons of Japanese ancestry, had been rejected by lower courts without extended Supreme Court review.

Michael D. Ramsey, a University of San Diego law professor, observed that the dissenting opinions focused more on the intentions of the amendment’s framers than on textual or original-public-meaning arguments. William Baude of the University of Chicago noted that the case raised technical questions about the term “jurisdiction” that produced distinct lines of reasoning among the justices who did not join the majority opinion.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted the prior week found that 55 percent of respondents opposed ending birthright citizenship. The poll did not ask respondents to evaluate the constitutional arguments presented in the opinions.

The executive order, issued on President Trump’s first day in office in 2025, sought to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants and certain temporary visa holders. The administration argued that such individuals were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. The Court’s ruling leaves the order unenforceable.

Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion reviewed the amendment’s text, its ratification history, and subsequent judicial decisions. The majority concluded that the clause was intended to establish a broad rule of citizenship by birth, subject to limited exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats.

The four justices who did not join the constitutional holding each filed or joined opinions that reached different conclusions about the scope of the jurisdiction requirement. Those opinions cited historical sources from the Reconstruction era and earlier common-law traditions.

Kavanaugh’s statutory concurrence did not address whether the 14th Amendment itself would permit the restrictions contained in the executive order. His opinion instead concluded that existing federal statutes did not authorize the president to alter citizenship determinations through executive action.

The case reached the Court after lower federal courts issued nationwide injunctions against the order. The Supreme Court granted review to resolve the constitutional questions presented.

No immediate legislative response has been announced. Members of Congress have introduced bills in prior sessions that would address birthright citizenship through statute, but none has become law.

The ruling does not prevent future administrations or Congress from advancing alternative interpretations through new legislation or further litigation, provided those actions comply with the Court’s holding on the executive order at issue.