Overview
- President Trump attended Supreme Court arguments Wednesday in the challenge to his 2025 order that would deny automatic citizenship to children born to parents in the U.S. unlawfully or on temporary visas.
- Government advocate D. John Sauer told the justices that the Constitution’s “subject to the jurisdiction” clause excludes those children because their parents lack full allegiance or domicile in the United States.
- Multiple federal courts have enjoined the order as likely unconstitutional, so existing birthright citizenship rules remain in place during the Supreme Court’s review.
- Legal analysts pointed to the Court’s 1898 Wong Kim Ark decision and to federal laws passed in 1940 and 1952 to argue that current precedent favors citizenship for most children born on U.S. soil.
- Parents described rushing to secure passports for newborns, warning that a reversal could make basic proof of citizenship harder to obtain for babies delivered in U.S. hospitals.