Global & US Headlines
Supreme Court Grants Certiorari on Trump’s Bid to Curb Birthright Citizenship
On 5 Dec 2025 the Court agreed to hear President Trump’s appeal of lower-court rulings that blocked Executive Order 14160, which would deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present.
Focusing Facts
- Executive Order 14160 was signed 20 Jan 2025 and slated to take effect 19 Feb 2025, but has been stopped by four district courts and two appellate courts, including a unanimous 9th Circuit panel in July.
- Twenty-four Republican-led states and 27 GOP members of Congress have filed amicus briefs urging the Court to uphold the order.
- Oral arguments are expected in the spring 2026 session with a decision anticipated by late June 2026.
Context
The last time the Supreme Court squarely addressed the 14th-Amendment Citizenship Clause was United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), when it rebuffed efforts to exclude U.S.-born children of Chinese immigrants—just two decades after the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). Today’s case echoes that nativist cycle: economic stress and demographic change again fuel attempts to narrow who counts as “us,” much as the 1924 Johnson–Reed Act tightened quotas after post-WWI anxieties. On a century scale the question is less about one executive order than about whether the Court, now with a 6-3 conservative tilt, will reinterpret a Reconstruction-era amendment that was deliberately written to be absolute after the Dred Scott debacle (1857). A ruling for Trump would mark the first time since the Slaughter-House Cases (1873) that the Court shrank the plain text of the 14th Amendment, potentially reopening debates over national membership that the post-Civil-War settlement tried to close. Conversely, affirming birthright citizenship would reinforce a 150-year trajectory toward inclusive civic identity despite periodic backlashes, continuing the arc seen in Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) and Plyler v. Doe (1982). Either path will reverberate far beyond current immigration politics, shaping who is an American well into the twenty-second century.
Perspectives
Left-leaning U.S. outlets
e.g., Common Dreams, Axios — They portray the Court’s decision to hear the case as an alarming sign that settled constitutional protections are under siege and insist Trump’s order is plainly unconstitutional. Their coverage stresses worst-case outcomes, labels the conservative majority “broken beyond repair,” and foregrounds advocacy voices, reflecting a progressive commitment to immigrant rights while casting the Court as illegitimate.
Right-leaning U.S. outlets
e.g., NTD, Independent Journal Review — They frame the dispute as a legitimate constitutional question about whether the 14th Amendment was ever meant to grant citizenship to children of illegal or temporary immigrants and highlight support from Republican officials. By treating Trump’s interpretation as a credible mainstream position and omitting the long line of contrary precedent, they implicitly normalize the administration’s stance and cater to an audience receptive to stricter immigration policies.
International media outlets
e.g., India Today, Economic Times — They report the Court’s acceptance of the case as a high-stakes legal showdown affecting U.S. immigration, summarizing arguments from both sides and the potential global ramifications. Reliant on wire services and distant from U.S. constitutional politics, their pieces tend to be descriptive and avoid taking a stance, which can underplay the intensity of the domestic legal consensus against Trump’s order.