Key facts
- The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold birthright citizenship.
- The ruling affirmed that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The decision rejected arguments made by President Trump to restrict birthright citizenship.
- Norman Wong, great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, praised the ruling as a victory for all Americans.
- The ACLU, represented by Cecillia Wang, argued the case for birthright citizenship.
The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed birthright citizenship in a 6-3 decision, rejecting arguments made by President Donald Trump that sought to restrict citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants. Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American whose 1898 Supreme Court case established the constitutional guarantee, hailed the ruling as a victory for all Americans.
In the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes anyone born in the U.S. a citizen, with very limited exceptions. This decision upholds a long-settled understanding of the Constitution.
Dissenting justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to secure rights for freed Black individuals and has been repurposed. Thomas wrote that the amendment has been "repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support."
President Trump called the decision "too bad for our Country" and suggested Congress could address it legislatively, though the majority opinion rests on constitutional grounds that would require an amendment to overcome. Wong criticized Trump's executive order, which he issued on the first day of his second term, as an unconstitutional "decree."
Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco in 1873 and was denied reentry to the U.S. in 1895, leading to the Supreme Court case that established that a child's citizenship depends on birth in the U.S., not a parent's citizenship. Norman Wong, 76, has become an advocate for birthright citizenship since Trump's executive order in January 2025.
The Justice Department stated its commitment to addressing illegal birth tourism. Cecillia Wang, the national director of the ACLU, who argued the case, emphasized that "a president cannot change the Constitution by executive fiat" and that the court reaffirmed the promise that "if you are born here, you are a citizen."