Trump v. Barbara
Key claim: The Supreme Court ruled that children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary visas are automatically U.S. citizens at birth, striking down President Trump’s executive order that tried to deny them citizenship.
Abstract
U.S. Supreme Court opinion decided 2026-06-30, by John G. Roberts. (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. v. BARBARA ET AL.
CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 25–365. Argued April 1, 2026—Decided June 30, 2026
The question presented is whether the Constitution guarantees citizen- ship to children born in the United States of parents who are unlaw- fully or temporarily present in the country. Under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or natural- ized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14160, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. The Order provides that children born in the United States of parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present here are not “subject to the ju- risdiction” of the United States—and thus do not qualify for citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment or the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which uses the same language. 90 Fed. Reg. 8449. Several parents filed suit, some in the name of their children, arguing that the Executive Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the INA. The District Court agreed, provisionally certified a nationwide class of children who would be denied citizenship by the Order, and prelimi- narily enjoined the Order’s enforcement. This Court granted certiorari before judgment. Held: Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or tem- porarily present are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizen- ship Clause. Pp. 2–26. (a) The Citizenship Clause must be understood in light of its histor- ical context, from the English common law to the widespread condem- nation of the Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393. 2 TRUMP v. BARBARA
Syllabus
Pp. 2–9.
(1) Under the English common law, children “born within the [sov-
ereign’s] dominions” owed a natural “allegiance” to the sovereign who
protected them at birth, 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws
of England 354, 356 (Blackstone), regardless of how “momentary and
uncertain” their presence, Calvin’s Case, 7 Co. Rep. 1a, 6a, 77 Eng.
Rep. 377, 384. Such children were therefore “natural-born subject[s].”
Doe v. Jones, 4 T. R. 300, 308, 100 Eng. Rep. 1031, 1035. The same
rule applied to children born of parents subject to expulsion. See, e.g.,
4 Blackstone 166. The rule’s exceptions were narrow: children born in
lands the sovereign did not control, children born in areas temporarily
outside the sovereign’s control, and children of foreign ministers (by a
fiction of extraterritoriality). Calvin’s Case, 7 Co. Rep., at 18a–18b, 77
Eng. Rep., at 399.
This common law of citizenship—known as jus soli, or right of the
soil—crossed the Atlantic and prevailed in “each and all of the states”
after American independence. 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American
Law 39, n. a (Kent). The rule was applied even to the novel situation
of quasi-sovereign Indian tribes, who maintained “dominion[s]” of
their own such that Indians born under those dominions were not “cit-
izens” but members of “alien and sovereign tribes.” Goodell v. Jackson
ex dem. Smith, 20 Johns. 693, 714–715 (N. Y. Ct. Corr. Errors). In a
Nation of immigrants, jus soli’s broad scope took on particular im-
portance, assuring that children of foreigners—including those here on
a “temporary sojourn,” Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sand. Ch. 583, 638, 663–664
(N. Y. Ch.)—would be American citizens by birth alone. Pp. 2–6.
(2) In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Court departed from the com-
mon law and adopted the view that blood, not soil, determined citizen-
ship; it held that those descended from slaves could not be citizens. 19
How., at 419. The decision was met with shock, see D. Potter, The
Impending Crisis, 1848–1861, p. 281; 3 Writings of Abraham Lincoln
55, and abolitionists swore to undo what the Court had done, see 2 Life
and Writings of Frederick Douglass 259, 415, 424. Pp. 6–8.
(3) In the midst of the Civil War, Attorney General Edward Bates
issued a landmark opinion citing key authorities, including Calvin’s
Case and Kent’s Commentaries, rejecting the premise that “citizenship
is ever hereditary,” and declaring that “every person born in the coun-
try is, at the moment of birth, prima facie a citizen, . . . without any
reference to race or color.” 10 Op. Atty Gen. 382, 394, 399. The excep-
tions were “few”—“the small and admitted class of the natural-born
composed of the children of foreign ministers and the like.” Id., at 397.
Following the war, Congress sought to turn Bates’s opinion into law
by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which made citizens of “all
persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power,
Cite as: 609 U. S. ___ (2026) 3
Syllabus
excluding Indians not taxed.” §1, 14 Stat. 27. The Act was simply assumed to invoke the common law rule. See Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 1116 (Rep. Wilson); id., at 1832 (Rep. Lawrence). Pp. 8–9. (b) What the Civil Rights Act began, the Fourteenth Amendment, and its repudiation of Dred Scott, would finish. Pp. 9–12. (1) The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause mirrored the common law’s criteria for citizenship, starting with territory (a child must be “born . . . in the United States”) and ending with sovereign power (a child must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States). A child born on American soil and subject to American law was made an American citizen. Even the language of the Clause is that of the common law, echoing cases and treatises that described the common law rule. See, e.g., Lynch, 1 Sand. Ch., at 668; Kent 38 and n. a. And its principal author explained that its language was “simply declaratory of . . . the law of the land already.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2890 (Sen. Howard). Pp. 9–10. (2) The Citizenship Clause’s key phrase—“subject to the jurisdic- tion”—refers to the power of the United States to govern those within its territory. N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Lan- guage 732 (def. “jurisdiction”); J. Worcester, Dictionary of the English Language 1435 (def. “subject”). The scope of that power was settled largely by Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116, where Chief Justice Marshall explained that “jurisdiction” referred to “the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories,” “sus- ceptible of no limitation not imposed” by the nation itself. Id., at 136. The narrow exceptions to jurisdiction arose where exercising jurisdic- tion would “degrade the dignity” of “foreign sovereigns”—most fre- quently in the case of “foreign ministers.” Id., at 136–139. But private individuals who traveled to the United States for “business or caprice” were “amenable to the jurisdiction of the country.”
Why this matters
The decision settles at the highest court a long-contested constitutional question about who is a citizen at birth, foreclosing executive attempts to narrow the Citizenship Clause by regulation or order. Practically, it protects U.S.-born children of undocumented, asylum-seeking, and temporarily present parents from losing citizenship, passports, and derivative benefits, and constrains future administrations from reinterpreting the Fourteenth Amendment without a constitutional amendment.