The United States Supreme Court has reaffirmed the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, ruling 6-3 against President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to certain children born on American soil.

In its landmark decision delivered on Tuesday, the nation’s highest court held that the executive order violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, preserving the long-established principle that nearly all children born in the United States are citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Brett Kavanaugh, who concurred in the judgment. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

Trump signed the executive order on his first day back in office in January 2025 as part of a broader immigration agenda. The order sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents were either undocumented immigrants or in the country on temporary visas. The policy was immediately challenged in multiple federal courts, which blocked it from taking effect.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court relied on the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The justices also reaffirmed the longstanding precedent established in the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which has long been interpreted as guaranteeing birthright citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil, with limited exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats.

Writing for the majority, Roberts emphasized that citizenship is a fundamental constitutional right and concluded that the executive branch cannot unilaterally redefine the meaning of the Citizenship Clause through executive action.

The decision represents a significant legal setback for Trump’s immigration agenda and leaves intact a constitutional principle that has shaped American citizenship law for more than a century. According to legal experts, any effort to fundamentally alter birthright citizenship would require either a constitutional amendment or a different interpretation adopted through future judicial precedent, rather than an executive order alone.

The ruling is expected to affect the legal status of hundreds of thousands of children born in the United States each year and provides clarity on one of the most contentious constitutional questions surrounding U.S. immigration policy.