The United States Supreme Court rejected this Tuesday President Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, a measure that sought to deny U.S. citizenship to certain children born on U.S. soil if their parents were not citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The decision, issued by a 6-3 majority, represents a major setback for one of the president’s main immigration policies. The court held that the executive order violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which establishes that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.
The ruling also reaffirms the precedent established in 1898 in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark , which has been interpreted for more than a century as a broad protection of birthright citizenship. Trump’s order had been previously blocked by lower courts and never fully went into effect.
Civil rights organizations and state attorneys general argued that the president lacked the authority to modify a constitutional guarantee by executive order. With this decision, the Court makes it clear that any change to birthright citizenship would require a constitutional process, not a unilateral action by the Executive Branch.