Trump Revives Push to Limit Birthright Citizenship After Supreme Court Ruling
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is again pursuing restrictions on birthright citizenship, signing two executive orders to limit citizenship for some children born in the United States and to crack down on foreigners who travel to the country to give birth.
The decision comes weeks after the Supreme Court rejected Mr Trump's earlier attempt to broadly deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are not citizens or permanent residents.
In its June 30 decision in Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court held that children born in the United States to unlawfully or temporarily present parents are citizens at birth under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Trump said the new orders were modified to reflect that ruling. But legal experts and immigrant rights advocates expect these measures to face legal challenges in federal court.
What the new orders are for:
The 14th Amendment generally grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the United States and subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Current law includes limited exceptions, such as for the children of some foreign diplomats.
Trump’s new orders aim to broaden the categories of children born in the United States who would not automatically receive citizenship.
They include the children of certain foreign government officials, employees of international organisations and persons covered by provisions dealing with foreign enemies or designated organisations. The orders also target children born through surrogacy in cases that the administration links to attempts to obtain U.S. citizenship.
The scope of those provisions will probably be central to any legal challenge. Critics say an executive order cannot create new exceptions to a constitutional guarantee of citizenship simply by redefining who it covers.
Birth tourism at the heart
A second order targets what the administration has called “birth tourism” – cases in which foreign nationals come to the United States solely to give birth so that their children can obtain US citizenship.
The order from the administration instructs federal agencies to act against individuals who knowingly use the U.S. immigration system for that purpose, including attempts involving false statements or representations made during the visa process.
Those who knowingly misrepresent the purpose of their travel already face immigration consequences. The new order aims to put more emphasis on suspected birth-tourism activity.
The size of the practice is still controversial.
Trump said Thursday that “hundreds of thousands” of cases of birth tourism had occurred, but the data available did not support the number. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted nearly 9,600 births in 2024 to non-U.S. mothers officially residing abroad, while a separate estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies pegged the number of birth tourists at between 20,000 and 26,000 per year.
Those numbers measure different things and should not be taken as interchangeable estimates of the same population.
The president’s estimate of “hundreds of thousands” seemed much higher than what the available data support, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute.
Questions about diplomats, organisations and terrorism designations
The orders also raise questions about how the government would decide whether a parent falls into some of the newly targeted categories.
While the existing constitutional doctrine recognises exceptions for foreign diplomats, the new measures being taken by the administration attempt to go beyond the traditional diplomatic category.
The orders also name people linked to groups designated as terrorist organisations by the U.S. government or otherwise targeted by national security authorities. It could present thorny questions about how government agencies would determine an individual's membership or affiliation and how those determinations would affect a child born in the United States.
Legal scholars also question whether such categories are compatible with the 14th Amendment’s broad guarantee of citizenship.
Surrogacy raises another legal issue
The administration’s restrictions also apply to some births through surrogacy, an issue that has drawn more scrutiny from lawmakers seeking to limit citizenship for children born to noncitizen parents.
Legal experts say the constitutional issues are murky because the 14th Amendment does not specifically address surrogacy.
So any attempt to deny citizenship on the basis of the circumstances of a child’s birth could become yet another challenge to the scope of executive authority as an interpreter of the Citizenship Clause.
Another legal battle looms
Immigrant-rights groups and others are likely to challenge the new orders with lawsuits.
The administration says it is using immigration and visa authorities still available after the Supreme Court’s ruling in June. White House staff secretary Will Scharf said the new measures are aimed at what he called the "birth tourism industry" and are not inconsistent with the Court's decision.
The critics are split.
The key legal question will be whether the new orders fit into existing exceptions to birthright citizenship or if they are attempting to create new exceptions that are inconsistent with the Constitution.
The most significant legal backdrop remains the Supreme Court’s June decision. The Court in particular found that the children born in the United States of parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment.
That means Mr Trump’s latest orders are likely to face another much-watched test in the federal courts.
The real impact of the measures will hinge on how agencies implement them and whether courts stay or uphold individual provisions while litigation plays out.
