Protestors gather in support of birthright citizenship in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 1, 2026. —Samuel Corum—Sipa USA/AP ImagesThe Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld birthright citizenship, preserving the more than 150-year-old constitutional guarantee that nearly everyone born on American soil automatically becomes an American citizen and dealing a significant blow to President Donald Trump’s effort to impose sweeping new restrictions through executive action.In a surprisingly narrow 5-to-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—to reject Trump’s order, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred only in the judgment and dissented in part, saying the policy violated federal statute even if, in his view, it did not run afoul of the Constitution itself.The outcome marked one of the most consequential defeats of Trump’s second term and underscored the complicated relationship between a president who has relied heavily on a conservative Supreme Court, including three justices he appointed, but who has also repeatedly lashed out at members of the court when they rule against him.The ruling was the third major setback for Trump at the high court in recent months, following decisions striking down his global tariffs and blocking his attempt to immediately remove a Federal Reserve governor. In each instance, the President responded with sharp personal criticism of the justices, accusing some of being disloyal or unpatriotic. Anticipating a loss in the birthright case, he had similarly warned on social media that “dumb judges and justices” could undermine the country.Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts relied on the text of the 14th Amendment, the nation’s history after the Civil War and more than a century of legal precedent to conclude that children born to parents who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily are nonetheless entitled to citizenship at birth.“Citizenship, then and now,” Roberts wrote, “was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”He added that children born to parents who are in the United States unlawfully or temporarily are “born in the United States” and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” “Under the Constitution,” he wrote, “they are citizens at birth.”At the center of the case was the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 in the wake of the Civil War and established that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.”That clause has been interpreted for more than a century—including by the Supreme Court itself—to mean that nearly any child born on U.S. territory, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, is a citizen of the country.On the first day of his second term, however, Trump issued an Executive Order that sought to limit that guarantee to only children with at least one parent who is a citizen or legal resident of the U.S.The order asserted that children born on American soil to parents without permanent legal status in the U.S. are not fully “subject to the jurisdiction” of the country, and thus that “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend” to them.Read more: What Parents Need to Know as Birthright Citizenship Case Reaches Supreme CourtThe Administration expounded on that claim in arguments to the Supreme Court over the order, which has been blocked by lower courts and never taken effect.Solicitor General D. John Sauer, an attorney representing the Administration, stated in written arguments to the Court that “children of temporarily present aliens are not completely subject to the United States’ political jurisdiction and so do not become citizens by birth.”“The Citizenship Clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children, whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile here,” Sauer later said during oral arguments before the Court in April. “It did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens, who have no such allegiance.”Both conservative and liberal justices expressed skepticism about the Administration’s argument at that time, suggesting to many that the Court would likely rule against Trump’s effort to redefine the parameters of birthright citizenship.Chief Justice John Roberts noted that Sauer’s case for who should be excluded from birthright citizenship based on the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” portion of the Citizenship Clause went far beyond the current, narrow exceptions to the guarantee the Administration attorney raised as examples.“The examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky, you know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to a whole class of illegal aliens,” Roberts said. "I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples.”Justice Amy Coney Barrett, meanwhile, stated at one point that the Administration’s assertions about the historical context surrounding the 14th Amendment’s ratification were “not textual.”Trump was present in the courtroom, marking the first time a sitting President has ever attended Supreme Court oral arguments. In a post on Truth Social after the hearing, he claimed that "we are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!" According to Pew Research Center, however, 32 other countries have substantively similar laws. Read more: How Does Birthright Citizenship in the U.S. Compare to the Rest of the World?The Supreme Court previously granted Trump a significant win by limiting lower courts’ ability to block his Executive Orders nationwide after several lower courts temporarily halted his birthright citizenship order. The Court did not address the constitutionality of the order at the time, however.Affirming a longstanding Supreme Court precedentThis ruling comes nearly 130 years after the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which set a foundational precedent on birthright citizenship that stands to this day.Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese citizens. After taking a trip at the age of 21, he was denied reentry to the U.S. on the grounds that he was not a citizen. The Supreme Court ruled, however, that he was a U.S. citizen, citing the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.Because Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S. and his parents were not “employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China,” the Court’s majority opinion stated, he was an American citizen based on the clause. “The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens”—with only limited exceptions, the ruling went on to say. And later: “Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.”Multiple justices addressed the precedent-setting case during oral arguments.“Let me just go to the implications of what you're asking us to do. You are asking us to overrule Wong Kim Ark,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said to Sauer.“I think even your brief concedes that the position you're taking now is a revisionist one with respect to a substantial part of our history,” Justice Elena Kagan told the Administration attorney. “And I think that that's in large part because of Wong Kim Ark and the way people have read that case, which of course was in the late 19th century, and have read it ever since then.”