People demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court ahead of the expected arrival of US President Donald Trump on April 01, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on whether an executive order from President Donald Trump could overturn the longstanding constitutional guarantee of citizenship for people born in the US, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Trump was in court to argue the birthright citizenship case trump vs barbaraThis is the first time a sitting President has participated in such a session.
Trump stayed for more than an hour to listen to a presentation by Solicitor General D. John Sawyer defending the executive order, and then left less than 15 minutes after a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union argued against his order.
“We are the only stupid country in the world that allows ‘birthright’ citizenship!” After leaving, Trump wrote in the Truth Social post.
If Trump’s order is upheld, it would leave thousands of children born each month in the US to undocumented immigrants or visitors without US citizenship.
On January 20, 2025, the first day of his return to the White House, Trump signed an executive order stating that 30 days after its effective date, children born in the US were no longer entitled to be issued citizenship documents if their parents had immigrated illegally or were undocumented workers.
Sawyer told the justices that automatically granting citizenship to people born in the US “dishonors the priceless and profound gift of American citizenship.”
Sawyer said, “It serves as a powerful disincentive to illegal immigration and rewards illegal aliens who not only violate immigration laws, but also jump ship in front of those who follow the rules.”
Sawyer said, “This has given rise to a huge industry of birth tourism as thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile countries have come to the United States to give birth in recent decades, creating an entire generation of American citizens abroad who have no meaningful ties to the United States.”
Sawyer said, “As Justice (Samuel) Alito pointed out, we are now in a new world where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from giving birth to a U.S. citizen child.”
Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Sawyer on his claim that children of illegal immigrants are not eligible for citizenship under the Constitution.
“You have placed too much importance on the subject of jurisdiction by referencing the argument that children born in the United States are subject to the laws of their birth parents’ countries,” Roberts said.
The Chief Justice continued, “But the examples you give in support of this appear to me very strange.”
Roberts said, “You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during hostile invasions, children on warships. And then you expand that to a whole class of illegal aliens who are here in the country.” “I’m not quite sure how you go from such a small and kind of weird group to that big a group.”
People demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court ahead of the expected arrival of US President Donald Trump on April 01, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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Cecila Wang, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, argued against Trump’s order.
Wang herself is a beneficiary of birthright citizenship, having been born in Oregon to Taiwanese parents who were living there on student visas. the new York Times Reported on Wednesday.
Wang argued, “Ask any American what the rules of our citizenship are, and they will tell you, everyone born here is an equal citizen.”
“When the government tried to strip Mr. Wong Kim Ark of his citizenship, this rule was established in the 14th Amendment to make it beyond the reach of any government official to destroy it,” Wang said, referring to the San Francisco man who was born to Chinese parents.
Trump’s executive order contradicts what, for more than 150 years, has been the legal interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gives automatic citizenship to infants born in the country regardless of their parents’ status.
That amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
It has jurisdiction over citizens of the United States.”
Several federal district court judges ruled that Trump’s order violated the Constitution. And two federal circuit courts of appeals upheld the injunction preventing the order from taking effect.