Trump's New Executive Orders Target Birthright Citizenship
New executive orders aim to restrict birthright citizenship for specific groups, including birth tourism cases, despite a recent Supreme Court rejection.
The Trump administration has issued a new pair of executive orders designed to restrict automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil. The orders, released Thursday, come months after the Supreme Court struck down a previous attempt to limit birthright citizenship. President Donald Trump stated the new directives were crafted with "adjustments" that account for the court's decision.
The new measures are narrower in scope than the earlier, broader attempt. They focus on specific categories of individuals, including children born to parents with ties to foreign embassies or international organizations, and those linked to groups designated as terrorist organizations. One order specifically targets "birth tourism," which it defines as entering the U.S. on a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth.
Current law, rooted in the 14th Amendment, grants citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil. Exceptions already exist for children of accredited foreign diplomats. The new orders would sharply expand these exemptions, also covering children of employees of the United Nations and other international bodies.
Legal experts have already raised questions about the feasibility of these rules. César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, questioned how the federal government would verify a parent's membership in a designated terrorist organization, noting such groups do not typically share membership lists.
The orders also address citizenship through surrogacy, a topic that has drawn concern from some Republican lawmakers. García Hernández noted that neither the 14th Amendment nor Supreme Court precedent mentions surrogacy, suggesting the new directive could raise novel legal questions.
President Trump did not provide data on the scale of birth tourism, but claimed the number is in the "hundreds of thousands." Experts dispute this figure. Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute called the estimate an overstatement based on available data. CDC figures from 2024 show nearly 9,600 births to foreign mothers with an address outside the U.S. Another estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration, puts the number of birth tourists at 20,000 to 26,000 annually.
White House staff secretary Will Scharf defended the orders, saying they use "legally validated means" and do not conflict with Supreme Court rulings. He emphasized the role of consular discretion in granting visas.
Advocacy groups remain skeptical. Cody Wofsy of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project stated that the Supreme Court has already rejected the administration's attempt to rewrite the Constitution, adding that "no amount of executive orders" will change the guarantee of birthright citizenship.