The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would hear a landmark dispute over the constitutionality of President Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship.
The legal fight stems from an executive order signed by the president on his first day back in office declaring that children born to undocumented immigrants and to some temporary foreign residents would no longer be granted citizenship automatically.
The executive order, which was immediately paused by courts without going into effect, would upend the commonly accepted view of American citizenship guaranteed since 1898: that citizenship should be extended to anyone born in the United States. It could throw into doubt the citizenship of hundreds of thousands of babies born each year.
The court has not announced a date to hear oral arguments, but the justices will most likely hear the case in the next few months. A decision would then be expected by the end of June or early July.
The case joins what is already a consequential term for the court, as the justices hear a series of challenges to other presidential actions, including Mr. Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs, his firings of the heads of independent agencies and his push to remove a governor of the Federal Reserve Board. In addition to those tests of presidential power, the court is weighing legal fights over transgender athletes in girls’ sports, a challenge to a central tenet of the Voting Rights Act and a high-profile Second Amendment case.
Birthright citizenship, the idea that virtually all children born on American soil are automatically citizens, regardless of the status of their parents, has long been considered a core tenet of the country.
That notion, which is rare among the most-developed countries in the world, is grounded in the language of the 14th Amendment. The amendment, ratified after the Civil War, states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Mr. Trump has long expressed skepticism about birthright citizenship. After winning his second term in November 2024, he told NBC News during his first extended interview as president-elect that he would end the practice.
“We’re going to have to get it changed,” he said then. “We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.”
