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People demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's expected arrival on April 01, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Al Drago | Getty Images
The Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on Wednesday on whether an executive order by President Donald Trump can upend what has long been the constitutional guarantee of citizenship for people born in the U.S., regardless of their parents' immigration status.
Trump was in the courtroom for the arguments, a first for a sitting president.
The White House on Tuesday evening issued Trump's daily schedule for Wednesday, which included him attending the arguments in the birthright citizenship case known as Trump v. Barbara.
"I'm going," Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House.
Arguments began Wednesday with Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who is defending Trump's order as legal, saying that automatically granting citizenship to people born in the United States "demeans the priceless and profound gift of American citizenship."
"It operates as a powerful pull factor for illegal immigration and rewards illegal aliens who not only violate the immigration laws, but also jump in front of those who follow the rules," Sauer said.
"It has spawned a sprawling industry of birth tourism as uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades, creating a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States," Sauer said.
"We're in a new world now, as Justice [Samuel] Alito pointed out, to where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen," Sauer said.
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Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Sauer on his claim that the children of illegal immigrants did not deserve citizenship under the Constitution.
Roberts said, "You put a lot of weight on subject to the jurisdiction thereof referring to the argument that children born in the U.S. are subject to the laws of the countries of their birth parents.
"But the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky," the chief justice continued.
"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 who are here in the country," Roberts said. "I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such a tiny and sort of idiosyncratic group."
People demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's expected arrival on April 01, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Al Drago | Getty Images
If Trump's executive order is upheld, it would leave tens of thousands of babies born in the U.S. each month to undocumented immigrants or visitors without American citizenship.
Trump, in his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, signed an executive order saying that 30 days after its effective date, babies born in the U.S. were not entitled to be issued citizenship documents if their parents were illegal immigrants or undocumented workers.
The order contradicted what has, for more than 150 years, been the legal interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as giving automatic citizenship to babies born in the country, regardless of their parents' status.
That amendment says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
Several federal district court judges ruled that Trump's order violated the Constitution. And two federal circuit courts of appeal upheld injunctions blocking the order from taking effect.
