Judicial defeat for Trump: the Supreme Court upholds the right to birthright citizenship
With six votes in favor and three against, the high court ratifies that every person born in US territory is a citizen with full rights
WashingtonThe Supreme Court of the United States has struck down Donald Trump's attempt to override the limits of presidential power and eliminate the right to birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. By a majority of six judges in favor and three against, the high court has ruled that the executive order with which the American president had sought to revoke one of the fundamental pillars of a country built on immigration is unconstitutional. Unlike other countries, in the United States citizenship is acquired by virtue of being born on U.S. territory, regardless of the nationality or legal status of the parents.
Revoking this right would not only have been a blow to a right that defines the essence of the country, but it would also have distorted the fight against slavery that founded it. The amendment stating that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens" was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War to annul a previous Supreme Court decision that excluded people of African descent from the right to citizenship. During the past hearing in April, both the Trump administration and the three conservative judges who today sided with them, argued that the historical origin of the right that was initially achieved for freed slaves was now not applicable to the children of immigrants currently born in the United States.
In the dissenting opinions of the ruling, written by Thomas and spanning 91 pages, this idea is reiterated. The justice describes the decision as "another chapter in the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to guarantee the equal rights of freed slaves, but which, on the contrary, has been reused for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support." According to the logic of the three conservative judges and the Trump administration, unlike other rights that are fundamentally universal and cumulative, this one would be exclusionary and exclusive.
Conversely, the President of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, who was responsible for writing the majority opinion, recalled how "citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to participate freely in our political community." "The architects of the Fourteenth Amendment extended this promise to 'all persons born free in this land.' Today we uphold that promise," he stressed.
As the head of the high court points out in the text, revoking the right to citizenship would have meant that many newborns from vulnerable families - including those with legal residency in the country - would have been excluded from many benefits related to access to health and food. Not to mention the real risk that many newborns would end up in legal limbo or directly as stateless persons, which would automatically expose them to the risk of deportation.
On January 20, 2025, Trump signed the executive order to revoke the right to citizenship and thus accelerate his anti-immigration campaign. The order was quickly blocked after more than twenty states and several groups fighting for the rights of migrants filed lawsuits against it. Since then, the legal litigation escalated until it reached the Supreme Court.
The American president had defended the order as a way to put an end to what are known as “anchor babies”, the children of undocumented immigrants who, upon being born in the United States, obtain citizenship. Republicans and other conservative groups say that there are illegal immigrants who use this route to more easily obtain papers, even though the parents continue to run the risk of being deported at any time and only have facilities to start processing the green card (permanent residency permit) when the child turns 21.
However loud the blow to the American president may be, it is not a great surprise. During the presentation of oral arguments in April, where the American president unusually appeared, a good part of the Supreme Court bench already seemed skeptical about the idea of revoking the 14th Amendment.
Although it is a decision that has been celebrated by groups defending migrants, last week the high court gave the Republican two major victories in immigration matters. On the one hand, it ruled that the government can end the temporary protection status currently enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians. On the other hand, it gave the green light for the right to asylum at the border to be denied. The bench ruled that border patrol can physically prevent immigrants from crossing the border, even if they are asylum seekers.
