Orders come weeks after Supreme Court rejected president’s first attempt to restrict constitutional guarantee
US President Donald Trump has launched a fresh attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, just weeks after the US Supreme Court rejected his initial effort to deny automatic citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents.
Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders seeking to expand the categories of children who would be ineligible for automatic US citizenship and to crack down on so-called “birth tourism”. Both measures are expected to face legal challenges.
Trump has long sought to dismantle birthright citizenship, making the issue a central part of his second-term immigration crackdown.
His latest move follows a Supreme Court ruling on 30 June that voided his earlier executive order and reaffirmed that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on US soil.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump criticised the court’s decision.
“It was close, but a very, very unfortunate decision,” he said, adding that his administration was making “adjustments” because he considered the existing system unfair.
The first executive order seeks to expand the categories of children who would be excluded from birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.
Historically recognised exceptions include children born in the US to foreign sovereigns and diplomats, children of occupying foreign forces, children born on foreign ships and children of Indigenous Americans.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a leading architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said the new order would expand those exceptions to include children of members of “foreign terrorist organizations” and certain people who lobby or act on behalf of foreign governments.
The order also seeks to extend the existing exception covering children of foreign ambassadors to additional foreign government employees. It would further deny citizenship to children whose parents allegedly engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.
The second executive order targets “birth tourism” – the practice of travelling to the US with the intention of giving birth so that a child obtains US citizenship.
Trump claimed that hundreds of thousands of people had engaged in the practice, but available evidence suggests the number is considerably smaller.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, the highest census-based estimate puts birth tourism at between 22,000 and 26,000 births annually. Government data recorded about 9,600 births in 2024 to mothers with foreign addresses, representing less than 1% of births in the United States.
The new order directs federal agencies to target businesses and operators that facilitate birth tourism. However, travelling to the US under the guise of tourism while actually intending to give birth is already considered visa fraud, raising questions about what the new order will add to existing enforcement powers.
The orders are likely to trigger another legal battle. The American Civil Liberties Union described them as another unconstitutional attempt to undermine birthright citizenship.
The administration’s latest actions appear designed to test the limits of the Supreme Court’s June ruling by arguing that additional categories of people fall outside the 14th Amendment’s citizenship guarantee.
Courtesy of NBC