The Supreme Court will decide whether Trump’s birthright citizenship order violates the Constitution

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order on birthright citizenship, setting the stage for a landmark ruling that could fundamentally alter how American citizenship is determined.

On Friday, the justices announced they will review a lower court’s decision that struck down Trump’s January 20 order, which declared that children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. The case will be argued this spring, with a ruling expected by early summer.

The executive order, signed on Trump’s first day of his second term, attempts to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, which has been understood for more than 125 years to grant citizenship to virtually everyone born on American soil, with only narrow exceptions for children of foreign diplomats or those born during foreign occupation.

The Republican administration’s move is part of a broader immigration crackdown that includes enforcement surges in several cities and the first peacetime use of the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. These policies have faced numerous legal challenges with mixed results in the courts.

Every lower court that has examined the birthright citizenship order has concluded that it likely violates the Constitution. The specific case the Supreme Court will review comes from New Hampshire, where a federal judge blocked the order in July as part of a class action lawsuit representing all children who would be affected. The American Civil Liberties Union is leading the legal challenge.

“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, the ACLU’s national legal director. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”

The administration’s legal argument hinges on its interpretation of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” in the 14th Amendment. Government lawyers contend that children of noncitizens are not fully subject to U.S. jurisdiction and therefore not entitled to automatic citizenship.

“The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause was adopted to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children — not to the children of aliens illegally or temporarily in the United States,” wrote D. John Sauer, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, in court filings.

The case has significant political support along partisan lines. Twenty-four Republican-led states have filed briefs backing the administration’s position, along with 27 Republican lawmakers, including Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Legal experts note that the case represents one of the most significant challenges to constitutional interpretation of citizenship in generations. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was primarily intended to ensure citizenship for formerly enslaved Black Americans, but its language has been interpreted broadly since an 1898 Supreme Court ruling.

The outcome could affect millions of children born to non-citizens in the United States. Census Bureau data estimates that approximately 300,000 babies are born annually to parents who are in the country without legal authorization.

This case marks the first Trump immigration policy to reach the high court for a final ruling in his second term, though the justices have already weighed in on emergency appeals related to other immigration enforcement actions. Recently, the court effectively stopped the use of the Alien Enemies Act for rapid deportations of Venezuelan nationals, while allowing immigration enforcement operations to resume in the Los Angeles area.

The court is also considering whether to allow National Guard troops to be deployed for immigration enforcement in the Chicago area, after a lower court blocked such action.

Legal scholars suggest the case could become one of the most consequential immigration rulings in decades, with implications that would reach far beyond the immediate policy dispute to fundamentally reshape American citizenship law.