Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order in May

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday that it will hear arguments on May 15 in a high-stakes legal battle over former President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship. The justices will not issue a decision until later in the summer, with a ruling expected by late June or early July.

At the heart of the case is Trump’s claim that the U.S. Constitution does not automatically grant citizenship to every child born on American soil, an assertion that defies more than a century of established legal precedent.

Since the order was issued on the first day of Trump’s administration, multiple federal courts have struck it down. Judges in at least three states have ruled that the policy is unconstitutional, and three appellate courts have declined to lift those blocks. In Washington State, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, appointed by President Reagan, was the first to halt the order, labeling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

Despite these setbacks, Trump has remained adamant that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee citizenship to the children of noncitizens. This position, however, is widely viewed as legally unsound. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of birthright citizenship more than 125 years ago, and that decision has never been overturned.

A coalition of states has challenged the executive order in the nation’s highest court, arguing that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment clearly protects the rights of all individuals born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ immigration status. In their brief, the states wrote: “For over a century, it has been the settled view of this court, Congress, the Executive Branch, and legal scholars that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to babies born in the United States.”

The 14th Amendment plainly states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Rather than directly seeking to overturn the lower court rulings, the Trump administration’s legal team has asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of the injunctions, at least enough to allow them to begin preparing to implement the order.

The justices did not indicate whether they would address a broader issue raised by the administration: whether individual district court judges should be able to issue nationwide rulings, as has been done in this case.

For now, the debate over birthright citizenship heads to the Supreme Court, where it could become one of the most consequential immigration rulings in recent memory.