President Donald Trump attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday for Trump v. Barbara, a case that could end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to illegal aliens and foreign tourists.
Trump confirmed Tuesday he planned to attend. “I’m going,” he said. “I think so, I do believe because I’ve listened to this argument for so long.”
The case stems from an executive order Trump signed shortly after returning to office in early 2025. The order directed federal agencies to stop granting automatic citizenship to so-called “anchor babies” born to parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary visas.
Left-wing groups challenged the order in court, and the litigation climbed to the Supreme Court. Wednesday’s session was the oral arguments phase, where justices question attorneys from both sides before the court reaches its decision.
Trump made clear he sees the current policy as absurd. “Chinese billionaires and billionaires from other countries who all of a sudden have 75 children or 59 children in one case or 10 children, becoming American citizens,” he told Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy. “It is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He also offered his reading of the 14th Amendment, the constitutional provision at the center of the dispute. “It was about slaves,” Trump said. “All of this legislation, all of this having to do with birthright citizenship, it was at the end of the Civil War. The reason was, it had to do with the babies of slaves and the protection of the babies of slaves. It didn’t have to do with the protection of multi-millionaires and billionaires wanting to have their children getting American citizenship.”
The Supreme Court has never directly ruled that birthright citizenship must extend to children of illegal aliens. Many constitutional scholars argue the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not apply to that category because those individuals are not fully subject to U.S. jurisdiction, the key standard the framers used when ratifying the amendment.
A ruling in Trump’s favor would mark one of the most significant immigration policy shifts in a generation. The court is expected to issue a decision before the end of its current term.
