Supreme Court hears high-stakes birthright citizenship case | The Excerpt
Dana TaylorOn the Thursday, April 2, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Supreme Court heard arguments on Trump’s birthright citizenship order, which could affect about a quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe joins The Excerpt to break down the arguments and what comes next.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
The US Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in perhaps the most controversial case this term, the one involving birthright citizenship. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to not recognize the citizenship of babies born in the United States if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident. The decision could impact about a quarter of a million babies born in the United States each year, could also affect millions of others.
Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, April 2nd, 2026. Joining me to break down Wednesday's arguments is USA TODAY's Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe. Welcome back, Maureen. It's always good to have you here.
Maureen Groppe:
It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Dana Taylor:
The Birthright Citizenship case is more formally known as Trump versus Barbara. Tell me more about Barbara, please.
Maureen Groppe:
Barbara is a pseudonym for one of the parents who are challenging Trump's executive order on behalf of a child. This particular person, this mother, she came to the US from Honduras. She is seeking asylum in the US because of gang activity in Honduras. And while that application is pending, she said she and her family have become part of the community in New Hampshire. And she is the lead name on this class action lawsuit that involves many other parents as well.
Dana Taylor:
Maureen, this case has to do with the 14th Amendment, a law that was ratified more than 150 years ago. Tell me what this amendment says and what motivated its passage.
Maureen Groppe:
The 14th Amendment is one of three amendments that were adopted after the Civil War. And this particular one, it overturned the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision that African Americans could not be citizens. So the citizenship clause made clear that formerly enslaved Black people and their children are citizens, but the clause is not limited to the status of Black people. And in fact, it uses the words all persons when it says, "All persons born are naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States."
Dana Taylor:
Let's get to the arguments. What did the lawyers arguing against Trump's executive order say on Wednesday?
Maureen Groppe:
They argue that Trump's executive order violates that citizenship clause that I just read, and that it also violates a previous Supreme Court decision about that clause. And they say it violates a federal citizenship law passed in the 1950s that includes similar language.
Dana Taylor:
And what did the lawyers representing Trump argue?
Maureen Groppe:
Basically, they say that this citizenship clause has long been misinterpreted. They focus on the phrase, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," and they say that term means more than just if you're here, you have to follow the laws. They say it implies this level of allegiance that people who are in this country temporarily or who entered illegally, they can't meet that higher bar of allegiance so that their children should not become automatic citizens.
Dana Taylor:
Solicitor General John Sauer repeatedly brought up birth tourism as a booming industry trend in his arguments. Is there a legal basis for his argument?
Maureen Groppe:
There is not. And that was a point that the Chief Justice John Roberts made. He started off by asking the Justice Department attorney, the Solicitor General, whether there are any good statistics on how often this occurs, because this has been one of the president's lead arguments for why his executive order is needed. He's talked about many people coming to this country just to have babies here and the security risks that that poses. The Solicitor General acknowledged that there aren't good figures on how often this happens. And the chief justice followed up just to basically say, "But you agree with me, right, that we're not supposed to consider policy decisions like that, just the legal issues."
And that question about whether policy factor should be a consideration was also raised by another of the conservative justices whose vote could be key to this decision. That's Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And he made the same point when talking about the administration's point that the United States is fairly unique. There are other countries that have birthright citizenship, but it's the minority. And Justice Kavanaugh said, "Well, you raised that point, but that's a policy issue and we're supposed to be focused on legal issues."
Dana Taylor:
217 members of Congress filed an amicus brief friendly note to the court on this case. What did they say in their brief, Maureen?
Maureen Groppe:
Yeah, there were very many amicus briefs filed in this case. This case generated among the most, if not the most, this term, more of the briefs cited against Trump than with him. And the brief you're referring to was filed by Democratic members of Congress. There were some Republican members of Congress who filed briefs supporting Trump, but not as many Republicans waited on this as did Democrats and Congress.
Dana Taylor:
Notably, President Trump attended the arguments on Wednesday, the first time in history that a sitting president did so. How did he react during arguments? Was his presence acknowledged by the court or the lawyers who were presenting?
Maureen Groppe:
My colleague Karissa Waddick, she was there in the courtroom just to keep an eye on that very thing. And she said that the president was a quiet presence in the courtroom. She said that there were some stifled gasps when he walked in, but other than that, his attendance was barely acknowledged by lawyers with the justices in the courtroom on Wednesday. He did not end up staying for the full two hours. He left the courtroom shortly after the justices had finished questioning the Justice Department attorney.
Dana Taylor:
Based on the questions from the justices following the arguments, did you get any sense of which way they're leaning?
Maureen Groppe:
Yeah. So predicting how they're going to rule is always tricky and they may not know themselves and they will sit down soon to informally vote on how they want to rule on this and then someone will start to write the opinion, which will be circulated amongst each other. And until that opinion is final, justices can change their views. Going into this argument, there is an expectation that this would not get a very good reception at the court. None of the lower courts that have looked at this issue have sided with Trump, but we got... Even though we heard a lot of skepticism and got a lot of tough questions for the Justice Department on Wednesday, they weren't completely dismissive of the administration's arguments and they had some tough questions for the challengers too. So some of the key conservative justices, it did seem like that they were more likely to rule against the president, but we won't know that until the decision comes out.
Dana Taylor:
As I mentioned, this executive order, if SCOTUS deems it legal, would affect millions of people. Who are we talking about here? There are a few different categories, right?
Maureen Groppe:
Right. So there are the children of people who are undocumented. They enter the country and either without permission or stayed here without permission. That's the biggest category. But then there are also many people who are here on a temporary basis who would be affected. That includes people who are here on work visas, on student visas, those who were allowed admission through humanitarian programs, or because they are seeking asylum. And if Trump's executive order goes into effect, their children would not have automatic citizenship.
Dana Taylor:
Maureen, if that happens, if Trump's order goes into effect, isn't it possible that some babies could be born stateless? What's the solution for those children?
Maureen Groppe:
Yes, it's certainly possible that some babies born here would be recognized of citizens of no country. And at this point, it's unclear what the solution would be for them.
Dana Taylor:
In your article previewing the arguments, you also referenced a cascading effect since birthright citizenship has been in place for so long. Tell me about that.
Maureen Groppe:
Well, right now, the federal immigration laws are built on this longtime understanding of what birthright citizenship is, who it covers. So for example, there's no mechanism for Barbara, the woman who's the lead plaintiff in this suit. There's no mechanism for her to add a child that is born here to her pending asylum application, and that's because the asylum laws assume that her child is already a citizen, so they didn't anticipate that situation.
Dana Taylor:
Other countries have tighter citizenship rules than the United States. If Congress wanted to take a step in that direction and tighten citizenship rules, what kinds of options are on the table?
Maureen Groppe:
Well, that depends on what the Supreme Court decides. If they issue a ruling against Trump and they say that this is not what the citizenship clause means, then there's little that Congress can do unless they want to pass a constitutional amendment. It's also possible that the court will issue a decision. They won't address the constitutional question. They could strike down the president's executive order based on similar language in a citizenship law that was passed in 1952. If they do that, if they say his law violates the law, then Congress could change the law, but that would likely lead to another legal battle that would come back to the Supreme Court and they would have to decide finally the constitutional question underlying this issue.
Dana Taylor:
So could the justices decide this case in different ways more expansively, for instance, or perhaps more narrowly? What are the possibilities here?
Maureen Groppe:
The court could, of course, uphold Trump's executive order and say that he's right on how he interprets the citizenship clause at the 14th Amendment, but if they rule against him, they can do that in more than one way. They can say that his order, his understanding of the 14th Amendment is wrong, or they could say his executive order violates a 1952 law and therefore it's not legal.
Dana Taylor:
Maureen, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump, when would it go into effect?
Maureen Groppe:
That would be up to the court. The original order was supposed to go into effect 30 days after Trump signed it, but the court could set a new effective date. So for example, last year when they looked at the issue of whether Trump's executive order could go into effect while it was being litigated, when they issued a decision saying, "The lower court judges had gone too far in putting the order on hold," and they had the judges take another look at it, they kept that from going into effect for 30 days to give courts time to adjust. And in fact, within those 30 days, the lower court judges looked at it again and found a different way of putting his order on hold. So it has not gone into effect. But the point is that it's Supreme Court rules in Trump's favor, they can also say when they think it should go into effect, how much time is needed for everyone to adjust.
Dana Taylor:
And finally, when are we expecting a ruling in this case?
Maureen Groppe:
We would expect a ruling by the end of June or early July. The court often hands down its biggest decisions at the end of their term, which ends at the end of June or early July. And this, as you mentioned, is one of their biggest, if not their biggest cases this term, and it's also being argued a little later in the term. And so that means the justices will need time. They could work up right up to that deadline to come up with their opinion.
Dana Taylor:
Maureen Groppe is a Supreme Court correspondent for USA Today. Maureen, it's always wonderful to have you on the show and to hear your insights. Thank you so much.
Maureen Groppe:
Happy to do it.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA Today's The Excerpt.