Trump signs two executive orders to narrow birthright citizenship after Supreme Court rebuff

New orders signed

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on August 6 in a renewed attempt to restrict birthright citizenship, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his previous effort. The first order bans "birth tourism," targeting pregnant foreign nationals who travel to the United States to give birth so their newborns obtain American citizenship. The second order expands the categories of people whose children would not automatically receive citizenship at birth, including children of individuals classified as "alien enemies," members of foreign terrorist organizations, employees of foreign governments serving in the United States, and persons who attempted to obtain citizenship through fraud. A third category, concerning births in U.S. territories, would require congressional action first.

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, outlined the orders at the Oval Office signing. He said the first decree excludes babies from birthright citizenship when their parents belong to specific categories, including citizens of a "hostile nation," members of foreign terrorist organizations, and "large groups" of people acting on behalf of foreign governments.

The practice of birth tourism is banned. That means no one in the world will now be allowed to obtain a visa for that fraudulent purpose.

Supreme Court rejection

Trump's first executive order on birthright citizenship, signed on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, sought to deny automatic citizenship to children of parents without legal status or with temporary visas. A wave of litigation followed, culminating in a Supreme Court ruling on June 30, 2026. The court rejected Trump's order, with vote counts reported differently across sources: the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported a 5-4 decision, while France 24 and The New York Times reported a 6-3 ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts held that the constitutional promise of citizenship extends to all persons born on U.S. territory, with only historically limited exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats or members of an occupying foreign force.

Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that the Supreme Court ruling was very unfortunate.

We had a bad decision, a very unfair decision. Our country is suffering from it, and we are ending [birthright citizenship] in a different way.

Trump also referenced the 14th Amendment's origins, saying it was enacted "right after the Civil War" for "the babies of slaves," and asked what was happening now, saying people were building businesses around it.

Legal analysis

Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, told RFI that the two orders face different legal prospects. The birth tourism order, which acts upstream by refusing visas to women coming to give birth, is "rather solid" and aligns with existing U.S. law. The second order, on citizenship itself, is "much more fragile," since the Supreme Court affirmed that every child born in the United States is a citizen at birth, including if parents are undocumented or passing through. The only exceptions permitted by the Constitution, as reaffirmed by the justices, concern children of diplomats or members of a foreign occupying force.

Scale of birth tourism

No official data exist on the number of foreign citizens who travel to the United States specifically to give birth. A 2020 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank based in Washington, estimated that between 20,000 and 25,000 pregnant women traveled to the United States for this purpose between 2016 and 2017. By comparison, an estimated 250,000 children of legal or undocumented immigrants are born annually in the United States, according to data cited by RFI. Trump has designated several South American cartels as terrorist organizations, though the government has frequently provided no evidence when arresting alleged members of these cartels, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Trump also attended oral arguments in the Supreme Court birthright citizenship case, something no sitting president had done before.

The new orders, like Trump's first attempt, are expected to face legal challenges in court.