After Supreme Court Loss on Birthright Citizenship, Trump Administration Eyes Bans on Pregnant Travelers, Birth Tourism Crackdowns

Hours after the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, the administration and its allies did not retreat. They escalated their calls for measures that will limit who is classified as a US citizen, and who is not.

The ruling in Trump v. Barbara, handed down on June 30, held that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to every child born on U.S. soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.

President Trump publicly accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling, but immediately framed it as the beginning of a new political fight, not the end of one. Trump posted on Truth Social: “The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process. No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

The president went to sarcastically congratulate China on “their” birthright citizenship “win.” I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara leaned heavily on a 128-year-old precedent, United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which first established that a child born on U.S. soil to Chinese immigrant parents was a citizen at birth, regardless of his parents’ status. By “congratulating China,” Trump was sarcastically arguing that the ruling primarily benefits Chinese nationals exploiting birthright citizenship, not the freed enslaved people it was originally designed to protect.

In order to overturn the 2026 6-3 Supreme Court decision on birthright citizenship, Trump would have to muster a constitutional amendment that would require two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of states.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted with the majority but argued that Congress could amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to create new exceptions to birthright citizenship that would withstand constitutional scrutiny, without requiring a formal amendment.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Roberts traced the history of birthright citizenship from English common law through the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. He concluded that the Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” incorporates the centuries-old common-law rule that any child born within a sovereign’s territory, under its protection, is a citizen at birth.

Executive Order 14160, titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, declared that birthright citizenship does not automatically apply when a child’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States at the time of birth and the father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident or when the mother’s presence was lawful but temporary and the father likewise lacked citizenship or permanent residency.

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a principal dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, arguing that the Citizenship Clause should be interpreted to require “primary allegiance” to the United States. Thomas contended the Clause was a race-conscious remedial measure aimed at securing citizenship for freed slaves, not a universal guarantee for all children born on U.S. soil.

Justice Jackson wrote separately in a concurrence joined in part by Justice Sotomayor, pushing back forcefully against Justice Thomas’s interpretation. She argued that Thomas’s reading of the Fourteenth Amendment as a narrow, race-specific fix for the legacy of Dred Scott ignored the sweeping, universalist vision of the Reconstruction Congress.

Justice Samuel Alito also filed a dissent, arguing that children born to parents who are automatically made nationals of another country at birth are “subject to a foreign power” and therefore not entitled to birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Alito pointed to data suggesting that roughly 9% of all U.S. births in 2023 were to mothers who were in the country illegally or on a temporary basis.

Shortly after the decision was handed down, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, regarded as the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, appeared on Fox News with host Jesse Watters and said the administration would take “a hard look” at banning pregnant foreign women from entering the United States altogether.

“Just physically being on U.S. soil does not make you a citizen or qualified to carry on or capable of executing the inheritance of this country,” Miller said.

Miller argued that allowing noncitizens to give birth on American soil amounted to a form of civilizational self-destruction, claiming the Supreme Court had decided to “suicide” the country.

Miller’s remarks were echoed by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who said on Fox & Friends that birth tourism is a security risk and implicitly entertained barring pregnant women.

Within hours of the ruling, DOJ released a memo directing federal prosecutors nationwide to prioritize investigations of so-called “birth tourism schemes.”

MAGA media and political figures went further. Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of The Federalist, published a social media post calling for the United States to add justices to the Supreme Court, deny entry to all female foreigners, deny entry to all pregnant women, and sterilize of all foreign visitors prior to entry.