The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a case on President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.
The justices will hear Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling that stopped him from implementing the order, which said children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
The case, which was partially presented before the justices earlier this year, will be argued sometime in the spring and a decision in the case will be issued before the end of the court’s term in June 2026.
Trump signed the order on his second day back in office in January. The executive order sought to reinterpret the constitutional language that gives citizenship to nearly every child that is born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ legal status.
The order sparked concern among immigration advocates and constitutional organizations, particularly over what it could mean for expecting parents and those who had already been granted citizenship under the long-standing right.
Several lawsuits challenged the constitutionality of the president’s order and the Trump administration brought the case to the Supreme Court earlier this year through the emergency docket process. The multiple lawsuits, filed by expectant mothers, immigrant rights groups and several states, were consolidated for Supreme Court review.
After Trump’s order, lower courts issued nationwide injunctions, which prevented the administration from implementing the order. The federal judges said Trump would have a hard time proving that his order was constitutional. The administration then took the matter to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to limit lower-court judges’ ability to implement nationwide injunctions.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in June, ruled that the federal judges in the case exceeded their power by issuing the injunctions and pausing Trump’s order.
The majority opinion was delivered by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and was celebrated by the president and his allies, including Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too,” Barrett wrote.
Shortly after the Supreme Court decision, a federal judge again banned Trump from enforcing the order through a class action lawsuit. The Department of Justice appealed the class action suit which has landed the case before the justices.
The ruling was seen as a win for the president, but sparked concerns about what other issues outside of birthright citizenship a president could issue orders on.
Bondi was asked about what the future of Trump’s executive order would look like, and she expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would take up the case in the next term. Friday’s decision confirms Bondi was correct.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the June 2025 ruling. She argued that the Trump administration brought a case about injunctions because they know they will have a more difficult path proving the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship executive order.
Experts have pointed to Sotomayor’s argument that the administration may have an uphill battle to prove its case to the justices. Still, the makeup of the court has shifted more to the ideological right in recent years.
If the justices side with Trump in the matter, it would upend more than 125 years of interpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, that citizenship is guaranteed for almost anyone born in the United States.
Recent polling from the Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute, BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy and Deseret News found that even as Trump pushes forward with ending birthright citizenship, many Americans support the long-standing rule.
The American Family Survey found more than two-thirds of people (70%) say they recognize birthright citizenship as a constitutional right and just 15% say they don’t believe the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship.