As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4th, hundreds of millions of American citizens have another historical moment to celebrate: the upholding by the U.S. Supreme Court of a fundamental tenet of what grants U.S. citizenship: birth on U.S. soil.
On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling, held that those born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens of the United States by birth per the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Year-Long Battle for Birthright Citizenship
As the blog post from July 28, 2025, outlines in more detail, the root of the decision stems from President Trump’s Executive Order 14160 dated Jan. 20, 2025, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” In the Order, President Trump declared the U.S. government shall not issue a document that recognizes U.S. citizenship (such as a passport) or to accept documents issued by a state or local agency purporting to recognize U.S. citizenship (such as a birth certificate) for those born under the following scenarios:
- A child born to a mother who has no lawful immigration status in the United States and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the birth.
- A child born to a mother who has a lawful, but temporary immigration status in the United States and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the birth.
The justification in the Executive Order was that children born in the United States under those scenarios were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, which recognizes U.S. citizenship to those born on U.S. soil and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
The initial litigation that grew from the Executive Order focused primarily on whether federal district courts (the courts of first instance), could issue nationwide preliminary injunctions — which would temporarily halt the enforcement of the Executive Order as the litigation pertaining to its legality progressed. This narrow issue was addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. CASA, Inc., which held on June 27, 2025, that preliminary injunctions can only be upheld for specific plaintiffs bringing the suit, not across the whole country.
Parties then got more creative and used preliminary injunctions in the form of class actions to include current and future children all over the country who would be affected by the administration’s policy. And that is exactly what the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire did on July 10, 2025. While the underlying constitutionality of the litigation was pending before the District Court, the U.S. Supreme Court used a mechanism called certiorari before judgment where the Court bypassed the appellate court to immediately review the class-action-based preliminary injunction.
The Supreme Court’s Landmark Decision
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Trump v. Barbara. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court held that all children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens of the United States by birth per the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because they are still “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
The Court read the “subject to the jurisdiction” provision in light of the centuries-old English common law, which recognized that all children born within a sovereign’s domain owed a “natural allegiance” to the sovereign. The common law had limited exceptions that applied in situations where a sovereign has no formal or practical control: (1) birth outside the sovereign’s lands; (2) birth in military occupied zones; and (3) children of foreign diplomats/ministers, who, through their diplomatic credentials, are a byproduct of extraterritoriality of their sovereign state in another. This understanding was brought to the 13 colonies and adopted in practice following American independence.
Birthright citizenship, the Court acknowledged, was limited in scope to areas where the United States had formal control, thus excluding, at the time, American Indians born in sovereign tribal jurisdictions, and crucially excluded, during the Antebellum Period, citizenship to African Americans under the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the framers of the 14th Amendment adopted the Amendment to inscribe once and for all the common law doctrine that those born on U.S. soil where the United States has actual control are U.S. citizens regardless of the origins of the parents. The Supreme Court relied on voluminous evidence that the intent of the framers was to constitutionally formalize the common law rule of birthright citizenship. More than a century and a half of precedent upheld this rule, and acts of Congress thereafter extended U.S. citizenship to those born in areas traditionally not subject to formal U.S. control, such as American Indian Reservations and most unincorporated U.S. territories.
Technically, the Supreme Court upheld the District Court’s class-action-based preliminary injunction. However, the Court also entered a formal holding stating that any person born on U.S. soil, regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of the parents, is automatically a U.S. citizen at birth, effectively rendering the Executive Order unconstitutional and void.
The Court’s decision, while final and binding, was endorsed by just a 6-3 majority, meaning considerable debate about birthright citizenship, as reflected through its lengthy dissents, still exists in the public conscience. Nevertheless, this is a significant victory for mixed-status families (those whose parents are in undocumented or temporary status), as it extends to those born from such families within the country U.S. citizenship, a significant milestone to accompany 250 years of this nation’s independence.
Our Immigration Practice Group monitors and analyzes federal immigration decisions and legal matters. If you have questions on this or any other immigration topic, please contact attorney Christian P. Burr at (860) 240-6131 or cburr@harrisbeachmurtha.com, or the Harris Beach Murtha attorney with whom you most frequently work.
This alert is not a substitute for advice of counsel on specific legal issues.
Harris Beach Murtha’s lawyers and consultants practice from offices throughout Connecticut in Bantam, Hartford, New Haven and Stamford; New York State in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, New York City, Niagara Falls, Rochester, Saratoga Springs, Syracuse, Long Island and White Plains; as well as in Boston, Massachusetts, and Newark, New Jersey.