On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether an executive order by President Donald Trump can strip citizenship from children born to parents who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents—a legal question that could reshape the lives of hundreds of thousands of families and raise questions about the status of children already born.
For many families, that uncertainty is already taking hold. “There’s a lot of fear,” says Conchita Cruz, an attorney and co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which represents hundreds of thousands of people seeking protection or legal status in the U.S. She said her organization has heard from expecting parents who are anxious not only about their children’s legal status, but about the possibility of detention, separation, or statelessness. The stress, she said, has cast “a cloud over what should be a joyful time.”
The dispute before the court centers on the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, which declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Read more: How Does Birthright Citizenship in the U.S. Compare to the Rest of the World?
“Children of temporarily present aliens are not completely subject to the United States’ political jurisdiction and so do not become citizens by birth,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court in written arguments earlier this year. “In the debates leading to the amendment’s ratification, members of Congress recognized that children of aliens ‘temporarily in this country’ are not citizens.”
Frost said the framers of the 14th Amendment intended only narrow exceptions, primarily for children of diplomats and members of sovereign tribal nations at the time, and explicitly contemplated that children of immigrants would be citizens. The Supreme Court reinforced that understanding in an 1898 case, ruling that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents was a citizen. Since then, Frost noted, courts have repeatedly assumed that children born in the United States are citizens “regardless of parentage,” even if those statements were not always central to the rulings.
If the Court ends birthright citizenship, who would be affected?
Trump worded his executive order to only apply to those “born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.” It has since been blocked from going into effect by multiple courts.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissent of an earlier case related to birthright citizenship last year that, “If allowed to take effect, the Order may even wrench newborns from the arms of parents lawfully in the United States, for it purports to strip citizenship from the children of parents legally present on a temporary basis.”
Some children could be left without any citizenship at all. For families fleeing persecution, Cruz said, registering a child with a home country’s government can be dangerous, leaving parents fearful that their children could end up stateless, without passports or legal identity.
The consequences of such a change would begin almost immediately after birth. Today, hospitals help parents complete paperwork for a birth certificate and Social Security number, a process built on the assumption that a child born in the United States is a citizen. That number is essential for enrolling a newborn in health insurance and accessing benefits like Medicaid, which covers about 40% of births nationwide.
Expecting parents and newborns in limbo for now
Even before the court has ruled, the case is already influencing behavior. Cruz said her organization has heard from pregnant women who are anxious about going to the hospital to give birth if the order were to take effect. Some have asked whether immigration authorities could target newborns—fears that, she said, underscore the level of distress in affected communities.
The uncertainty also extends to children born in the past year. The executive order was originally set to take effect in February 2025 before courts blocked it. In the months since, many parents have rushed to obtain passports and other documentation for their newborns, fearing that a future ruling could put their status in question.
For legal scholars, the implications could stretch even further. If the Supreme Court were to agree with the Administration’s reading of the Constitution, Frost said, it would not simply create a new rule going forward—it would declare that the 14th Amendment has been misunderstood for generations. “That’s how constitutional law works,” Frost says. “It’s always meant this.”
“If the citizenship clause has meant that the children of temporary immigrants are not citizens, and my great-great-grandfather was a temporary immigrant…then I wouldn't be a citizen,” Frost said. “They'd have to pass a statute. Maybe Congress would do that, but it could unwind the citizenship of the nation.”
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