On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship — the constitutional guarantee under the 14th Amendment that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically a citizen. The order sought to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. if their parents were undocumented or on temporary visas.
Four federal judges — appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents — swiftly blocked the order as unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, called it “blatantly unconstitutional,” stating the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is “one of the most clear provisions in the Constitution.” The Supreme Court heard the case in 2026 (see below).
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 specifically to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people and has been consistently interpreted to cover all persons born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court affirmed this in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). Trump's attempt to override a constitutional amendment by executive order represents an extraordinary assertion of presidential power with no legal precedent.
On April 1, 2026, Trump became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments, in Trump v. Barbara, and left after his own appointees questioned his lawyer sharply (see Trump Storms Out of the Supreme Court After His Own Justices Tear His Birthright Citizenship Case Apart, Then Posts 'STUPID' on Truth Social).
On June 30, 2026, the Court ruled. In Trump v. Barbara, the justices held 6-3 that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment, striking down Executive Order 14160. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority, joined by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Barrett, and Jackson; Justice Kavanaugh concurred on statutory grounds. Justice Alito dissented, writing that “The Court has made a serious mistake.” Trump's responses, a call for Congress to end birthright citizenship by statute and a request for rehearing, are in the walkout entry.
On August 6, 2026, Trump signed two new executive orders taking a narrower route: one targeting “birth tourism” by restricting visas for people entering to give birth, the other narrowing birthright eligibility for specific categories, including children of “alien enemies,” members of foreign terrorist organizations, foreign-government agents, and fraud cases. The AP described the new order as “narrower in scope than the previous one shot down by the Supreme Court”; asked if it would survive a challenge, Trump said, “I think it will.” The ACLU: “The Supreme Court already decided this issue: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution.” A judge has since blocked the new order (see A Judge Blocks Trump's Second Birthright Citizenship Order, Saying the Supreme Court Already Decided the Question), and the State Department's passport guidance is in Draft State Department Guidance Would Make Parents Prove Their Own Citizenship to Get a Passport for a Child Born in the United States.
Correction (October 2, 2026): 2 citations (Reuters, NPR) were removed because their links are dead or could not be verified.