‘Incentivizes unlawful immigration’: Supreme Court sets time to hear birthright citizenship case
The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled a time to hear arguments in the birthright citizenship case, a fight brought by opponents of President Donald Trump who object to his agenda to return to the original understanding of the constitutional provision.
The hearing is to be April 1.
The fight is over the 14th Amendment that declares those born in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens.
Trump’s target is the millions of people in the birth tourism industry, where an illegal alien breaks into the United States, then has a child who is granted citizenship. That baby then acts as an anchor for family members to remain in the United States, even without authorization.
Trump issued an executive order when he took office that the new understanding of that provision is what it was when it was adopted a century ago – that it does not apply to children of diplomats, foreign visitors and those in the United States illegally.
The White House has filed with the court pages and pages of statements from experts who, at the time of its adoption, confirmed that it did not apply to those groups.
A report at Scotusblog said Trump issued his executive order correcting the understanding of the amendment a year ago.
The kid of a Mexican diplomat who is in this country *legally* doesn’t enjoy birthright citizenship. Well, neither does the kid of an *illegal* immigrant.
Here is what the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, AND… pic.twitter.com/GlcpZjgz7d
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) February 29, 2024
I signed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of Trump’s EO on birthright citizenship.
Giving children of illegal aliens automatic American citizenship incentivizes unlawful immigration. To protect our national sovereignty, this practice must end. pic.twitter.com/kjMSHvtFxt
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 28, 2026
No child born to foreign citizens should be considered a citizen of the United States.
The conferring of birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens does not come from any statute passed by Congress, and the 14th Amendment was never intended to grant citizenship to… pic.twitter.com/PKHZFbpDCc
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) January 29, 2026
His order, which has not gone into effect, “would bar automatic citizenship for babies born in the United States if their parents are in this country either illegally or temporarily,” the report said.
“The challengers in the case contend that the order conflicts with both the Supreme Court’s longstanding case law and the text of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that ‘[a]ll 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.'”
Trump has explained that the amendment was added to the Constitution in 1868 and was “intended to ensure that formerly enslaved people and their children were U.S. citizens, rather than to provide the sweeping benefit that it confers today.,” the report said.
The case already has been used by the Supreme Court to strike local judges’ ability to issue nationwide orders controlling the entire country, but it did not at that time resolve the birthright dispute.
The Supreme Court earlier granted the Trump administration’s request to review lower courts’ opinions that barred Trump’s order from taking effect.
WorldNetDaily previously reported that dozens of members of the Republican Party from the House and Senate have submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing in support of Trump’s view of birthright citizenship.
Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were joined by more than two dozen others to brief the Supreme Court on the facts of the dispute.
The members of Congress explained, “There is widespread agreement that the Jurisdiction Clause means that children born in the United States to ambassadors or invading soldiers would not receive citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. The best reason is because they do not owe total allegiance to the United States, rather than (as Plaintiffs contend) because those groups allegedly have immunity from federal law (in fact, they do not have unconditional immunity, as explained below).
“There is a wealth of support for the proposition that the Clause applies the same to children of those illegally present in the country because they (like ambassadors and foreign soldiers) do not owe total allegiance to the United States; they remain citizens of their home countries, to whom they owe at least divided allegiance and which often imposes birthright citizenship of its own on the children born to its nationals in the United States. Allegiance is also a reciprocal relationship. The person must be present with the consent of the sovereign, a factor on which this Court extensively relied upon in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). But illegal aliens and their children are present in the United States without consent, i.e., only by defying its laws.”
They note that English case law supports the concept of “total allegiance and its role in citizenship,” and “even the Senators who drafted and debated the Jurisdiction Clause stated that children of ‘aliens’ or others ‘owing allegiance to anybody else’ would not receive citizenship.”
They point out that understanding lasted for decades, and Congress never has granted citizenship to the children of those illegally in the U.S., so “the other branches cannot confer such citizenship on their own.”
Trump’s order, therefore, is correct, they explain.
WorldNetDaily also earlier reported when the White House dropped a bombshell on the case: documentation that experts and scholars wrote at the time the 14th Amendment was adopted that it did not extend citizenship to everyone, especially those in the country illegally.
A report at Revolver.news quotes from a filing from the White House in support of Trump’s order.
The government’s birthright brief has been filed. The most impressive part, which I hadn’t fully appreciated since my focus has been the common law, is the sheer number of commentators who presumed for decades that temporary visitors didn’t qualify for birthright citizenship: pic.twitter.com/AtjsRrr4MJ
— Ilan Wurman (@ilan_wurman) January 21, 2026
It quotes expert after expert after expert – all contemporaneous to the time the amendment was being considered, then adopted, and all of them offer explanations that those children of foreigners, of temporary residents or transient travelers passing through, are not U.S. citizens.
For example, Francis Wharton, in “A Treatise on the Conflict of Laws” from 1881, said, “Chinese born of Chinese non-naturalized parents, such parents not being here domiciled, are not citizens.”
Alexander Porter More, in the 1881 “A Treatise on Citizenship, said, “The words ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ exclude the children of foreigners transiently within the United States.”
Literally dozens of additional experts expressed like opinions.
Dozens in Congress support President Trump’s view of birthright citizenship