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Key Justices Appear Skeptical of Limiting Birthright Citizenship
During a Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday, several justices expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s efforts to bar children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States from automatically becoming Americans.
“You obviously put a lot of weight on, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, but the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky.” “And if they were going to invent an entirely new kind of citizenship, like an American brand, why wouldn’t we have seen more discussion of that?” “We’ll have it for you back at the Oval. The first is the rescissions of 78.” “Children of temporary visitors are not citizens. And illegal aliens lack the legal capacity to establish domicile here.” “The thing about this is, then you have to adjudicate. If you’re looking at parents, and if you’re looking at parents domicile, then you have to adjudicate both residents and intent to stay.” “We say no.” “The Citizenship Clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children, whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile here. It did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance.” “It’s crystal clear from Wong Kim Ark and from the debates that the framers of the 14th Amendment meant to have a universal common law rule of citizenship subject to a closed set of exceptions. And we can’t take the current administration’s policy considerations into account to try to re-engineer and radically reinterpret the original meaning of the 14th Amendment.” ”And that’s why we keep on making our voices.“ ”Immigrants don’t speak for me.“ ”Trump must go now.“
During a Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday, several justices expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s efforts to bar children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States from automatically becoming Americans.
By McKinnon de Kuyper and Jamie Leventhal
April 1, 2026
