The Supreme Court has handed down a landmark 5-4 ruling upholding birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to temporary visitors and undocumented immigrants, directly rejecting President Trump's executive order that sought to exclude these groups. The decision, which drew heavily on the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause, reaffirms that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are entitled to citizenship, a principle rooted in the post-Civil War era.
Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, joined by the court's four women justices: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Brett Kavanaugh provided the fifth vote but on narrower statutory grounds, arguing that Congress could alter federal law to exclude these categories without infringing on the Constitution. The ruling came as a surprise given the textual clarity of the 14th Amendment, but the court's conservative wing split sharply.
Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have upheld Trump's order, at least for children of temporary visitors, concluding that birthright citizenship applies only to those permanently domiciled in the U.S. because they alone are fully subject to U.S. jurisdiction. They left open the question of children of undocumented immigrants. Justice Samuel Alito went further, denying birthright citizenship to both categories, asserting that children of individuals who do not owe exclusive allegiance to the U.S. are not fully under its jurisdiction. He suggested Congress could grant citizenship to long-residing children of undocumented immigrants on moral grounds.
Roberts’s opinion invoked the infamous 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, calling it “odious.” The 14th Amendment was explicitly designed to overturn that ruling, which denied citizenship to Black Americans, whether enslaved or free. The Dred Scott court infamously declared that Black people were “beings of an inferior order” with “no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” a ruling rooted in white supremacy and originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
Originalism and the Shadow of Dred Scott
The Dred Scott decision relied on the 1790 naturalization law, which limited citizenship to “free white persons,” and on attorney general opinions denying citizenship to free people of color. The court argued that no change in public opinion should lead to a more liberal construction of the Constitution than intended at its framing. This originalist approach resonates with today’s conservative justices, but the majority in the current case rejected its application to birthright citizenship.
The Dred Scott court also addressed the Declaration of Independence’s claim that “all men are created equal,” arguing that the signers, many of whom owned slaves, did not intend to include Black people. The current ruling, by contrast, affirms that the 14th Amendment’s framers sought to repudiate that racist legacy. The decision has sparked a legislative push among GOP lawmakers, who are now pursuing bills to enact Trump's birthright citizenship ban through Congress, as seen in a recent proposal by a GOP lawmaker.
President Trump has vowed to seek a rehearing, but the court’s ruling is likely to stand, given the 5-4 split. The decision also drew attention to the political divides within the GOP, with some leaders facing internal rifts over the birthright citizenship bill. Meanwhile, the White House dismissed any irony in the case, as highlighted in the Balogun controversy, where a soccer player’s citizenship status became a flashpoint.
The ruling underscores the enduring tension between originalist interpretation and evolving constitutional principles. As the court navigates these waters, the legacy of Dred Scott remains a cautionary tale about the dangers of reading the Constitution through a lens of exclusion.
