Global Refuge Welcomes Supreme Court Decision Upholding Birthright Citizenship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2026

Contact: Erin Taylor | Email | 267-250-8829
Jessica Andrews | Email

WASHINGTON – The United States Supreme Court today ruled 6-3 that President Trump’s executive order attempting to deny citizenship to certain children born on American soil is unconstitutional. The decision reaffirms that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to virtually all persons born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, and blocks the executive order from taking effect.

“Today, the Fourteenth Amendment proved once again that it is stronger than the forces trying to hollow it out,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Global Refuge. “The Justices rightly recognized that the U.S. Constitution is clear and unambiguous: if you are born in this country and subject to its jurisdiction, you are a citizen of this country. Birthright citizenship survived the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow, and today, it survived an executive order that would have essentially turned the maternity ward into a customs checkpoint.”

Executive Order 14160, signed on the president’s first day in office, would have directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born to undocumented parents or parents on temporary visas. Researchers projected this move could increase the undocumented population in the United States by nearly 25 percent over 50 years and deny citizenship to more than 250,000 children born in the U.S. each year, exposing vulnerable children to lifelong discrimination, cutting them off from essential services, and stunting their development in ways that would have reverberated for generations.

“This was a constitutional stress test, and every court that heard this case unequivocally blocked this dangerous executive order, including the highest court in the land,” noted Vignarajah. “Somewhere today, a baby will be born in an American hospital to immigrant parents. That baby is a citizen. Not conditionally, not provisionally, and certainly not at the discretion of any president. That was true yesterday and the Supreme Court just made sure it stays true tomorrow.”