The United States (U.S) Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s order on birthright citizenship.
The proceedings follow Trump’s January 2025 executive order, which seeks to deny automatic birthright citizenship to children born on American soil to parents who are in the country unlawfully or on temporary visas.
The atmosphere during the proceedings was electric, as hundreds of advocates from both sides of the immigration debate gathered.
At the heart of the debate on Trump’s order on birthright citizenship is a fundamental disagreement over the 1898 landmark ruling United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
While Trump’s administration argued that the 1898 case has been “fundamentally misunderstood,” challengers, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and several states, maintain that the Constitution’s text is absolute.
ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang in her debate stated that there are “two paths” to victory over President Donald Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship.
Wang made the statement under questioning from Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday.
“Sure. You know, I think we obviously have these two paths to a win here. We’re happy to win on either or both of them. I do think it would be prudent for the court to reaffirm its decision in Wong Kim Ark, where it’s a landmark decision about the definition of national citizenship in this country. I just think it would be prudent for the court to go ahead and reaffirm that. But of course, we’re happy to take a win on any ground,” Wang responded.
“Ask any American what our citizenship rule is and they’ll tell you everyone born here is a citizen alike,” Wang began. “That rule was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to put it out of the reach of any government official to destroy.”
“When the government tried to strip Mr. Wong Kim Ark’s citizenship on largely the same grounds they raised today, this court said no,” Wang argued. “Thirty years after ratification, this court held that the 14th Amendment embodies the English common law rule. Virtually everyone born on U.S. soil is subject to its jurisdiction and is a citizen. It excludes only those cloaked with a fiction of extraterritoriality because they are subject to another sovereign’s jurisdiction, even when they’re in the United States. A close set of exceptions to an otherwise universal rule.”
In his defence of the incumbent administration, Solicitor General John Sauer stated that Native Americans are birthright citizens of the U.S under the Trump administration’s proposed changes to birthright citizenship.
“I think so. I mean, obviously, they’ve been granted citizenship by statute,” Sauer responded.
“I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees on in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens,” Sauer said.
“I understand that’s what they said, but your test is the domicile of the parents, and that would be the test you’d have us apply today, right?” Gorsuch responded.
“I think so on our test. Yeah. If they’re lawfully domiciled here. Not sure I have to think that through, but I’ll that’s my reaction,” Sauer said.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts questioned the Trump administration’s examples of individuals who are in U.S. territory but who are not considered “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” on Wednesday.
“Well, starting with that theory, you obviously put a lot of weight on ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'” Roberts told U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer. “But the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky.”
“You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships,” Roberts continued. “And then you expand it to a whole class of, illegal aliens who are here in the country. I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples.”
“There are those sorts of narrow exceptions for ambassadors, foreign public ships, tribal Indians, enormous ones that they were very focused on in the debates as well,” Sauer responded. “But what I do is I invite the court to look at the intervening step, which is the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. And they or they didn’t say subject to the jurisdiction thereof there it says not subject to any foreign power.”
Meanwhile, oral arguments on Trump’s order against birthright citizenship have concluded at the Supreme Court after justices heard Solicitor General John Bauer defend the administration.
Sauer gave a closing statement after ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang argued against the Trump administration’s move.
The court is expected to issue a ruling in the case by the end of June.
In his reaction after the conclusion of the arguments, Trump said: “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!.”
Since the commencement of his second term administration in January 2025, Trump has been clamping down on immigration rules and has sanctioned the deportation of several individuals deemed to be illegal in the U.S.
