New Delhi: The United States Supreme Court Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and certain temporary foreign visitors. The court’s decision, a stunning rebuke to the president, is a significant loss of face for the Trump administration even though other rulings this week delivered it a series of triumphs.
The US Supreme Court has released a flurry of decisions near the end of its term, but none is quite as important or long awaited as its ruling on birthright citizenship.On 20 January, 2025, the very first day of Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order to end the automatic granting of American citizenship, known as birthright citizenship, for the children of undocumented immigrants and parents temporarily visiting the US. Trump’s efforts at curbing birthright citizenship, which he calls “birth tourism”, is part of his administration’s broader crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration.
The president’s recently rejected executive order stated that no department or agency of the US government should issue citizenship documentation to a child born in America, when the mother of the child was in the US unlawfully and the father of the child is not a US citizen or a green card holder at the time of the birth, or when the mother’s presence is lawful, but temporary, and the father of the child is not a US citizen or a green card holder at the time of the birth.The second circumstance in the directive defined a “temporary” status as someone who is “visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program” or an individual who is “visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa”.This is especially relevant for over a million Indians in the US who are on temporary visas—including the hundreds of thousands of Indians who hold H-1B visas, L-1 intra-company transfer visas, and F-1 student visas. More than one million Indians remain stuck in the employment-based green card backlog, while continuing to live and work in the US on temporary legal status.Trump’s order reflects his administration’s belief that birthright citizenship is “a disgrace”, with US Vice-President J.D. Vance previously describing it as “the dumbest immigration policy in the world”.According to Pew Research Center data, approximately 9 per cent of US births in 2023 were to undocumented or temporary lawful immigrant mothers. If it was upheld by the Supreme Court, Trump’s order would have impacted thousands of babies born in the US each year who fit the specific criteria outlined in his directive.Despite the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, the vote was 6 to 3 to invalidate the president’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship. Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Court’s three liberals and Chief Justice John G. Roberts in concluding that the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, while Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed the order was unlawful because it violated federal statute. Both Barrett and Kavanaugh are Trump appointees.
