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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.
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The Supreme Court heard 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 in the birthright citizenship case known as Trump v. Barbara, the first time a sitting president has attended such a session.
Trump stayed for more than an hour, listening to the presentation by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who defended the executive order, and then left less than 15 minutes after a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union argued against his order.
"We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post after leaving.
If Trump's 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, on 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 had immigrated illegally or were undocumented workers.
Sauer told the justices that automatically granting citizenship to people born in the U.S. "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.
"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," Roberts said.
"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
Cecilla Wang, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued against Trump's order.
Wang is herself a beneficiary of birthright citizenship, having been born in Oregon to parents from Taiwan who were living there while on student visas, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
"Ask any American what our citizenship rule is, and they'll tell you, everyone born here is a citizen alike," Wang argued.
"That rule was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to put it out of the reach of any government official to destroy when the government tried to strip Mr. Wong Kim Ark's citizenship on largely the same grounds they raised today," Wang said, referring to the San Francisco man born to Chinese parents who was the subject of the 1898 Supreme Court case that upheld the concept of birthright citizenship.
Trump's executive 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.
