President Donald Trump is once again trying to restrict birthright citizenship, but his latest effort is already facing a formidable obstacle: the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling protecting citizenship for children born on American soil.
Trump signed two executive orders aimed largely at what his administration calls “birth tourism,” targeting foreign nationals who travel to the United States with the intention of giving birth. The measures are expected to draw immediate legal challenges, with several constitutional scholars questioning whether the administration can legally deny citizenship to children based on their parents’ conduct.
At the heart of the dispute is a Supreme Court decision issued in June that rejected Trump’s earlier attempt to narrow birthright citizenship. The court’s ruling relied on the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which extends citizenship to people born in the United States who fall under U.S. jurisdiction.
Amanda Frost, a University of Virginia law professor who studies citizenship issues, said the status of a child cannot be altered because of alleged wrongdoing by a parent.
One of Trump’s new orders instructs federal agencies not to recognize citizenship when a parent is allegedly involved in fraudulent conduct intended to obtain citizenship. Another seeks to restrict visas for people suspected of entering the country for birth tourism.
Current federal rules already prohibit temporary visitor visas from being used specifically to obtain U.S. citizenship for a child. The new order, however, raises questions about how immigration officials would determine whether someone entered the country with that intention.
Trump has repeatedly attacked birthright citizenship, arguing that it has encouraged illegal immigration and created an industry around birth tourism. During remarks at the White House, he claimed that large numbers of people were taking advantage of the policy.
Estimates are considerably more modest. Research by scholars at Penn State University has put the number of births involving birth tourists at roughly 5,000 to 10,000 annually during the 2014-2024 period.
A broader attempt to redefine citizenship
Trump’s latest orders go beyond birth tourism.
The administration is also seeking to broaden the historic exceptions to birthright citizenship. Traditionally, those exceptions have included children born to foreign diplomats and, in limited circumstances, children connected to hostile foreign forces occupying U.S. territory.
The new policy attempts to expand those categories to cover certain foreign government employees and people classified as foreign terrorists.
That part of the order has produced a more divided response among legal scholars. Some believe carefully defined changes involving diplomatic personnel could potentially survive a court challenge, particularly where substantial diplomatic immunity is involved.
Other experts warn that broader definitions could create serious constitutional problems.
University of Michigan law professor Sam Erman pointed to the experience of Japanese immigrants during World War II, when Japanese nationals in the United States were classified as enemy aliens. Applying a similarly broad concept today could raise the possibility of denying citizenship to American-born children based on the status of their parents.
The language used in the new directives could also give immigration officials considerable room to make case-by-case judgments. Terms such as “alien enemy” and the purpose behind a foreign national’s visit can be difficult to define precisely.
That uncertainty could leave officials with broad discretion over visa applications, admission to the country and citizenship-related decisions.
Supreme Court ruling looms over new policy
The administration’s biggest difficulty remains the Supreme Court’s June decision.
The justices rejected Trump’s earlier attempt to exclude children of undocumented immigrants and other temporary visitors from automatic citizenship. The ruling emphasized the constitutional guarantee contained in the 14th Amendment.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the amendment established citizenship as a fundamental connection to the nation for those born under U.S. jurisdiction.
Justice Samuel Alito, who dissented, took the opposite view. He argued that the ruling would extend citizenship even to children whose mothers entered the country only briefly for the purpose of giving birth.
That disagreement has now become central to Trump’s renewed campaign.
White House officials insist the latest executive orders do not conflict with Supreme Court precedent. But some legal scholars see a direct collision between the administration’s approach and the court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
John Yoo, a former Justice Department official and University of California, Berkeley law professor, said he did not believe fraudulent conduct by parents automatically creates an exception to the constitutional guarantee.
Rachel Rosenbloom, an immigration law professor at Northeastern University, went further, describing several of the proposed citizenship exclusions as constitutionally vulnerable.
The coming legal battles will therefore likely focus less on whether the administration can regulate birth tourism itself and more on whether it can use parental conduct, immigration status or the alleged purpose of a visit to strip American-born children of citizenship.
For Trump, the issue is once again moving toward the courts — and the Supreme Court has already signaled where it stands on the central question.
