Supreme Court considers President Trump’s birthright citizenship issue
Families across the country are awaiting Trump’s Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship that could redefine American identity.
Anna Tem Otting likes to say her son David, 5, is as American as apple pie. Born to a Guatemalan-Mexican mother and a Swedish-German father, he is a perfect example of the melting pot that makes America America.
But a pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling could block automatic U.S. citizenship for hundreds of thousands of babies born each year to people whose parents entered or remained in the U.S. without permission. And some immigrant rights advocates fear the court could go further and ultimately allow the president and Congress to strip citizenship from tens of millions of adults born in the United States to parents who did not have legal permission to do so.
Such decisions could subject millions of people to deportation to other countries they have never set foot in. Tim Otting is among them. Temu Otting was born in Los Angeles to parents who did not have legal immigration status at birth. The potential loss of birthright citizenship is sparking tough conversations among the estimated 4.7 million families with mixed immigrant status who have always believed they were Americans.
Temu Otting and her husband were U.S. citizens when their son was born, but she worries the Supreme Court is dangerously willing to allow President Donald Trump to strip generations of Americans of their citizenship.
“I feel like the stakes are off for everyone at this point,” said Tem Otting, who owns a union printing shop outside Denver. “What’s happened is unprecedented.” “We talk about it every day. But if we talk about it too much, we get depressed.”
President Trump’s birthright citizenship push challenges the 14th Amendment and mainstream legal interpretations of federal immigration law, disrupting what millions of people thought was a settled issue, said Noah Baron, assistant director of litigation for Asian Americans for Justice.
“The foundations of these rights that we once considered fundamental have shifted beneath our feet, leaving far too many people concerned,” Baron said. AAAJ is suing the Trump administration over the executive order.
What is birthright citizenship?
Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, virtually everyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen. But the Supreme Court is moving closer to issuing a ruling that could open the door to President Trump’s goal of stripping millions of people of their citizenship.
In 1866, after the end of the Civil War, Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment, which made it clear that formerly enslaved people and their children were citizens. In 1898, when asked to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese children was an American citizen.
In the case of a man named Wong Ark Kim, the justices decided by a 6-2 vote that the language of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means that people born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are automatically citizens.
The phrase “subject to its jurisdiction” has been used in the past to deny citizenship to infants born to foreign diplomats and soldiers stationed in the United States.
In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for newborns, and the Supreme Court is deciding whether to allow the order to go into effect. President Trump titled his executive order “Defending the Meaning and Values of American Citizenship.”
If approved by the courts and interpreted narrowly, President Trump’s order would affect about 255,000 babies born each year, effectively rendering them stateless. The president has made this change a top priority, although he has not publicly outlined plans for the impact of such a decision. In April, he became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court arguments, watching from the audience as lawyers argued before the justices.
“We are the only country in the world stupid enough to recognize ‘natural-born’ citizenship!” President Trump posted on social media later that day.
Thirty-two countries around the world have broadly similar citizenship laws, and about 50 others offer more restrictive versions, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on how birthright citizenship revocation would work. Supporters of the initiative argue that only people who enter the United States through the proper legal process should be given the right to citizenship for their children, no matter how difficult it may be.
what happens next
In a legal brief supporting the president, several Republican lawmakers said people are abusing the system and that it is estimated that 50,000 Chinese people travel to the United States to have children each year, a form of “birth tourism” that those who drafted the citizenship law never envisioned.
“The national security implications of a misinterpretation of the Citizenship Clause are real, immediate, and serious. If the court adopts the plaintiffs’ arguments, it would strip Congress of much of its power to prevent adversaries from producing nominal citizens, people who are disloyal to this country and even seek to subvert its interests,” the Republicans, led by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, wrote.
Of the approximately 14 million undocumented people living in the United States, nearly 80 percent are from Mexico and Central and South America, according to the Aoki Center for Critical Race and National Studies at the University of California, Davis School of Law.
An additional 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 brought to the United States as children, and people who entered the country through humanitarian programs. Over 90% come from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
Tim Otting said he’s pretty confident that he and his son won’t be deported, but he’s still concerned because they could end up being deported if President Trump wins at the Supreme Court. She said her mother and aunt made the dangerous journey to the United States because it is a beacon of freedom, safety, and success. Her mother and aunt eventually became U.S. citizens, but her father was deported to Mexico.
“It’s really unfortunate that so many of this country’s commitments are being withdrawn or threatened,” said Tim Otting. “This is a total violation of this country’s promise to be a place where everyone can thrive, where people can be free and where they can be educated.”
