I. Overview

A. Pointed Summary

• On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Barbara that President Trump’s Executive Order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship violates the Fourteenth Amendment. 
• The order signed on Trump’s first day back in the White House in January 2025, directed federal agencies to deny citizenship to children born to mothers unlawfully or temporarily present in the U.S. where the father held neither citizenship nor lawful permanent residency.
• The Migration Policy Institute estimated roughly 255,000 children born each year stood to lose recognized citizenship status had the order taken effect.
• Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, affirmed that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, drawing on the Court’s 1898 precedent in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

B. Executive Summary

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Trump v. Barbara reaffirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, regardless of parental immigration status, significantly limiting the Trump administration’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship through executive action. Republican lawmakers are now exploring legislative responses, though constitutional scholars warn any statute would face immediate legal challenges. 

C. Relevance

Had the order taken effect, MPI projected the unauthorized population would grow by 2.7 million by 2045 - the opposite of its stated goal. The ruling determines who holds access to voting rights, federal benefits, and legal protection, making it one of the most significant immigration decisions in recent times. 

II. History 

A. Current Stances

Following the 6-3 ruling, President Trump criticized the decision and stated that Congress could pursue legislation addressing birthright citizenship.  Republican lawmakers have already begun exploring legislative avenues in an attempt to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling.  Following the decision, ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero stated that  “This was one of the most important constitutional cases of the past 100 years.” ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who argued the case at the Supreme Court, stated ”The court’s decision reaffirms a fundamental American promise — if you are born here, you are a citizen.”  Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the three justices who dissented from the majority decision, argued in the slip opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment is being “repurposed for political projects.”  Thomas also argued that the Citizenship Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment, “was enacted for people who were born in this country and called it home. It was enacted for freed slaves such as Dred Scott…”  Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote and delivered the opinion of the Court, began by addressing the case and its core issue of dispute. Justice Roberts wrote, “At issue in this case is whether the Constitution guarantees citizenship to children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States.” Justice Roberts then explained the opinion that “children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the U.S.” “satisfy both elements of the Citizenship Clause: they are “born . . . in the United States” and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth.”

B. Tried Policy

Birthright citizenship was written into the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision made by the Supreme Court in 1857. The Supreme Court then settled its scope and affirmed its rule on birthright citizenship in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, holding that children born on U.S. soil to noncitizen parents are citizens at birth. Congress then codified the rule in 1952 through the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

III. Policy Problem

A. Stakeholders

The Migration Policy Institute reported that ending birthright citizenship for children in line with parents’ legal status would have impacted a projected average of 255,000 children born each year over the next 50 years by causing them to start life without U.S. citizenship status. Lawyers argued that if this were to happen, it would create a large subsection of people who would be deprived of complete rights and protections granted by citizenship. Further, without U.S. citizenship, some children would be at risk of becoming “stateless,” meaning they would not be recognized as citizens of any country.⁸ Statelessness is not just a label; in fact, being stateless carries severe and lifelong consequences. The UN Refugee Agency reports that the millions of people around the world who experience statelessness are often denied access to education, healthcare, and even employment, with these effects being passed down through generations. The ACLU called the ruling a significant victory for immigrant families across the U.S. and for the families who feared that their children's citizenship and future were at risk. President Trump labeled the ruling as “too bad for our country” and has claimed that he can “easily make it up in Congress through Legislation.”

B. Risks of Indifferences

The stakes of indifference can be measured by what the order would have produced, that is, a class of people that would have experienced the consequences of being rendered stateless, and an unauthorized population projected to grow by 2.7 million by 2045. ⁹

C. Nonpartisan Reasoning

Supporters of birthright citizenship argue that it is a fundamental piece of American democracy as per the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,  and additionally, that presidential control over citizenship would imply presidential control over the electorate since citizenship determines voting eligibility. Opponents contend that the Citizenship Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment has been misinterpreted, arguing that children whose parents are in the country temporarily or who lack citizenship fall outside of what the clause includes, an argument that Justice Clarence Thomas echoed in his dissent. Beyond the constitutional argument, opponents also contend that birthright citizenship encourages “birth tourism.” ⁷ A Reuters/Ipsos joint survey found that 55% of Americans support maintaining birthright citizenship.

IV. Policy Options

Congress has several avenues available in the wake of Trump v. Barbara, though each carries different political and legal weight. The simplest option is inaction: leaving birthright citizenship governed by the fourteenth amendment as the court has now reaffirmed it, which avoids further legal challenges but leaves restrictionist lawmakers’ concerns unaddressed. A narrower path would target discrete practices like birth tourism and citizenship-by-surrogacy schemes, as proposed in sen. tim scott’s “anchors away act,” sen. cornyn’s “back off act,” and sen. Rick Scott’s “safe kids act” — measures that affect a small share of births but stand a better chance of attracting bipartisan support than a broader overhaul. A more ambitious option, echoing justice Kavanaugh's concurrence, would have congress redefine “subject to the jurisdiction” through statute rather than constitutional amendment, as rep. Babin's bill attempts; this route is legally uncertain, however, since Roberts's majority opinion ties birthright citizenship to the constitutional text itself, making a statutory fix vulnerable to swift court challenges. The most durable but least realistic option is a constitutional amendment, favored by Sens. Lee, Schmitt, and Paul, which would require two-thirds support in both chambers of congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states — a threshold made even less likely given that 55% of Americans oppose ending birthright citizenship. Short of any legislative action, the administration retains the option of shaping enforcement at the margins, such as the DOJ’s existing directive prioritizing investigations into birth tourism operations, without altering who qualifies for citizenship under the law.

V. Conclusions

The Court’s 6–3 ruling in Trump v. Barbara settled the constitutional question for the foreseeable future: children born on U.S. soil, regardless of parental status, are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. Because Chief Justice Roberts anchored the holding in the constitutional text itself rather than in statute, Congress’s room to maneuver is narrower than some Republican lawmakers initially hoped — Justice Kavanaugh’s separate concurrence notwithstanding. Practically, this pushes the fight from the courts into a legislative arena where a constitutional amendment is a near political impossibility, and where narrower measures (birth tourism, surrogacy-related loopholes) are the only proposals with any realistic path forward. For policymakers, the central tension is between symbolic responsiveness to the executive’s stated priorities and the substantive stakes described by MPI and legal advocates — an average of 255,000 children per year who would otherwise face reduced legal status, some at risk of statelessness. Given strong public support for birthright citizenship, any option Congress pursues will need to weigh that political reality against the administration’s continued pressure to act.

VI. Acknowledgement

The Institute for Youth in Policy wishes to acknowledge Adwaya Yesare for editing this policy brief.

VII. References

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