The United States Supreme Court has rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship, ruling against an executive order he signed at the beginning of his second term.
In a 6-3 decision issued on Tuesday, the nation’s highest court struck down the order, reaffirming that individuals born on U.S. soil are entitled to American citizenship under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Trump had introduced the executive order as part of his administration’s immigration agenda, seeking to limit automatic citizenship for certain children born in the United States.
Delivering the court’s opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts stressed the constitutional importance of birthright citizenship.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land’. We keep that promise today.”
The executive order had already been suspended by lower courts pending the outcome of the legal challenge.
The ruling marks another legal setback for Trump, whose relationship with the Supreme Court has grown increasingly tense in recent months despite appointing three of its current justices. Before the judgment, the president had openly criticised the court and predicted it would rule against his administration on the issue.
