Supreme Court to rule on birthright citizenship. What it means.

• The 14th Amendment grants automatic citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
• Under Trump's policy, roughly 255,000 children born on U.S. soil each year would start life without U.S. citizenship.
• If the order goes into effect, every new parent would need evidence of their own citizenship or immigration status to ensure their child is a citizen.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s attempt to sharply limit who is automatically an American could affect the legal status of as many as 255,000 babies born in the United States each year, according to some estimates.

In addition, the parents of millions more would have to prove the citizenship status of their newborns.

Those are some of the major consequences at stake when the Supreme Court debates on April 1 the legality of Trump’s order.

Here’s who could be impacted if the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, sides with Trump.

What would Trump's executive order do?

The 14^th Amendment grants automatic citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

The primary exemption for birthright citizenship has been the children of foreign diplomats.

But Trump argues that children of people who are in the country illegally or temporarily should also be exempt. That would include babies born to parents who are in the United States on student or work visas, or who were granted temporary permission to stay through humanitarian programs or because they are seeking asylum.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term directing federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of babies born in the United States if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident.

When would Trump's policy go into effect?

Trump’s executive order was supposed to go into effect on Feb. 20, 2025, but was blocked by lower courts.

If the Supreme Court upholds the order, the justices could also set a new effective date. For example, when the court restricted the power of judges to stop the policy last year, it kept the order on hold for 30 days so lower courts had time to respond.   

How many people would be affected by Trump's policy?

Under Trump's policy, roughly 255,000 children born on U.S. soil each year would start life without U.S. citizenship, according to the Migration Policy Institute. That’s about 6% of all projected births.

The institute estimates that the share of the U.S. population without citizenship or legal status would be 40% larger in 2075 than it would be without the change.

Who are we talking about?

Of the approximately 14 million people living in the United States without documentation, nearly 80% came from Mexico, Central and South America, according to the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies at the University of California, Davis School of Law. 

Another 5.5 million to 6.5 million people in the United States have temporary or provisional status, including those with pending asylum claims, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and people who entered through humanitarian programs. More than 90% came from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

What would happen to babies born without citizenship?

Some of the children born in the United States would become stateless – meaning no country would claim them − and may have no pathway to citizenship, even if their parents do. For example, a mother seeking asylum would not be able to add her child to her application, according to Conchita Cruz with the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.

That’s because many federal immigration laws are built around the presumption of birthright citizenship and don’t address situations like that, though the laws could change.

Could the policy apply retroactively?

Trump’s executive order directly applies to people born after the order goes into effect. But if the Supreme Court agrees with the Trump administration that the 14^th Amendment has been misinterpreted for generations, that would "cast a shadow" over the citizenship of millions of Americans, according to immigrant rights groups.

“The decision that the government is asking for would really signal a kind of open season on questioning the citizenship of other Americans, something we’ve already seen far too often,” said Cody Wofsy, a lawyer with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.

How could the policy affect all parents?

If the order goes into effect, every new parent would need evidence of their own citizenship or immigration status to ensure their child is a citizen, according to immigration law experts.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, a longtime immigration law scholar and retired Cornell Law School professor, said that’s a burden millions of Americans cannot meet.

At least 3.8 million Americans don’t have ready access to a birth certificate, passport or a naturalization certificate to prove their citizenship, according to a recent survey by the Brennan Center for Justice.

“We would essentially need a new federal bureaucracy to adjudicate the citizenship of newborns,” Yale-Loehr said.

Could the Supreme Court bypass the constitutional issue?

The Supreme Court has more than one way to rule against Trump’s executive order. The justices could avoid deciding whether his policy violates the original understanding of the 14^th Amendment and, instead, say it violates a 1952 immigration law.

While that would still be a win for those challenging the order, it would be an incomplete victory. For example, Congress could change immigration laws – which would likely draw another legal challenge, sending the constitutional question back to the high court.

When will the Supreme Court issue a decision?

The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling by the end of June or early July.