Case: Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. Barbara, et al., No. 25-365
Lower Court: First Circuit
Docketed: 2025-09-29
Status: Granted
Question Presented: The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that those "born * * * in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," are U.S. citizens. U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 1. The Clause was adopted to confer citizenship on the newly freed slaves and their children, not on the children of aliens temporarily visiting the United States or of illegal aliens. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14,160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citize...
Among the 33 amicus briefs filed on February 26, 2026, one stands out for its internal tension with the administration’s own interpretive framework. Originalist scholars Evan D. Bernick and Jed H. Shugerman submitted a brief arguing against the executive order on originalist grounds. That filing is notable precisely because the government’s central argument rests on original meaning. When prominent originalists contest that reading, it signals that the historical record is genuinely contested, not simply a matter of one side invoking history and the other ignoring it.
The case concerns Executive Order No. 14,160, issued on January 20, 2025, which directs federal agencies to withhold citizenship documents from children born in the United States to parents who are either unlawfully present or present on temporary visas. Lower courts, including the First Circuit, blocked the order. The government petitioned for certiorari, and the Court granted review. The question is whether the order comports with the Citizenship Clause and its statutory codification at 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a). See the Oyez case page and the official docket for full filings.
The legal question turns on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The government contends that children of temporary visitors and undocumented persons do not satisfy that condition. Opponents argue that United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) settled the matter in favor of broad birthright citizenship. The Bernick-Shugerman brief suggests that even a committed originalist methodology does not compel the government’s conclusion, which may complicate the Court’s path to ruling for the administration on textualist or historical grounds alone.
The breadth of amicus participation, spanning the American Bar Association, members of Congress, local governments, faith organizations, and competing groups of constitutional scholars, reflects how much turns on the Court’s interpretation. A ruling narrowing birthright citizenship would affect the legal status of children born in the United States going forward and would require the Court to revisit over a century of settled administrative and judicial practice.