The right of birthright citizenship will continue in Colorado — even as a Supreme Court ruling on Friday could allow President Donald Trump to at least temporarily end the practice in other states amid an ongoing legal battle, according to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
“You’re protected. And if people are born here in Colorado, they still will benefit from birthright citizenship,” Weiser said in an interview with Colorado Matters.
With the court’s 6-3 decision delivered by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the U.S. can carry out an order from Trump to end the practice of birthright citizenship in much of the country — but not in Colorado and other states — for children born after Feb. 19.
The Supreme Court ruling did not take on the constitutionality of Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, which grants citizenship to every child born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
Instead, it was focused on a question about how the legal battle has played out so far. Trump issued the order on Jan. 20, but three judges in lower courts quickly blocked it. Those judges issued injunctions that prevented the Trump order from going into effect nationwide.
On Friday, the Supreme Court said those lower-court judges had exceeded their authority and had no right to block the order nationwide. The judges ruled those earlier injunctions could only apply to certain people and jurisdictions involved in the specific lawsuits.
The ruling means that Trump’s order could go into effect in many parts of the U.S. — even as the legal battle over the order continues. However, Weiser said, it will continue to be blocked in Colorado because of the state’s status as a plaintiff in a lawsuit, challenging Trump’s order.
Colorado is one of 22 states suing to stop the order.
The justices stayed their decision for 30 days, potentially allowing time for a new class-action lawsuit with national scope. But if their ruling goes into effect, Weiser said it could create a “chaotic” situation, where babies born to undocumented parents in Colorado are granted citizenship, but not in other states.
“If someone’s born in Colorado but lives in Wyoming, are they a birthright citizen or not?” Weiser said. “I recognize the fear and uncertainty. This would be a chaotic and challenging situation, as some states have constitutional rights protected, but not in other states. This opinion is incomplete in terms of what it’s going to mean. There’s still work to be done.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, speaks at a news conference on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, in Denver, Colorado, where he announced a $3 million grant to fight opioid overdoses. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)Weiser said he would continue to fight Trump’s citizenship order, which attempts to undo the country’s historic approach to citizenship.
The 14th Amendment, enacted in 1868, declared: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
“We’ll keep fighting in the lower court to defend the 14th Amendment and the citizenship of those born in Colorado. The new limits on universal injunctions will not stop us from challenging the president or his administration when they overstep their authority and take illegal and dangerous actions that harm Coloradans.”
Trump’s executive order on Jan. 20 said that children born in the U.S. after Feb. 19 would be denied citizenship unless one of their parents had permanent legal status in the country. Multiple lawsuits were immediately filed to challenge his reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. The high court’s ultimate decision on his order could affect hundreds of thousands of children born each year in the U.S.
The Trump administration had asked the court “to allow the government to partly enforce the executive order, even if it remains blocked from doing so with respect to the specific challengers in these three cases, and allow the government to develop guidance about how it would implement the order,” according to SCOTUSblog.
Pew Research Center estimated that about 250,000 babies were “born to unauthorized immigrant parents” in the U.S. in 2016. Data on Colorado wasn’t immediately available.
Colorado’s hospital association said it first started looking into how to deal with potential changes due to the court case earlier this year.
“In January, when we were first thinking about this issue, we confirmed that the role of the hospital is to certify that the birth occurred,” said Cara Welch, senior director of communications with the Colorado Hospital Association. “Legal status of the parents is not reported, so this would not be something hospitals would track.”
Welch said the federal Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t require hospitals to ask patients about immigration or citizenship status, and “Colorado does not have a state law that would impact that.” Texas and Florida are two states that do require hospitals to ask, but patients still aren’t compelled to answer, she said.
CPR News’ Tom Hesse contributed to this story.
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS and The Colorado Sun, and shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state. Funding for the Alliance is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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