NJ claims victory after Supreme Court rejects Trump’s birthright citizenship order

⚖️ The Supreme Court rejected President Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship.

✅ New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport called the ruling a victory for the Constitution.

🇺🇸 The decision leaves in place the long-standing rule that nearly everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen.

New Jersey scored one of its biggest legal victories yet against the Trump administration on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump's attempt to limit birthright citizenship.

The ruling preserves the long-standing constitutional guarantee that nearly everyone born on American soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen.

The decision is the latest in a series of high-profile court battles in which New Jersey has joined Democratic-led states challenging Trump's second-term agenda. State Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, whose office helped lead the multistate lawsuit, immediately declared victory, arguing the ruling reaffirmed that presidents cannot rewrite the Constitution through executive action.

"We are thrilled the U.S. Supreme Court has invalidated President Trump's birthright citizenship order," Davenport said.

"From the very first day of President Trump's second term, New Jersey, our multistate partners, and birthright citizens and their attorneys have fought day and night against this flagrantly unlawful executive order. The President cannot change our citizenship laws with the stroke of a pen. We stood up for the rule of law, we stood up for our residents, and we won."

Draft of 14th Amendment to the U S Constitution, outlining rights and priveledges of American citizenship, ratified in 1868 (Photo by Hulton Archive, Getty Images, Canva, Townsquare Illustration)

Supreme Court keeps long-standing interpretation

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the 14th Amendment and more than a century of legal precedent make clear that children born in the United States are citizens at birth, with only narrow exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats.

"Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community," Roberts wrote.

Three conservative justices dissented. Justice Clarence Thomas argued the court improperly interpreted the 14th Amendment to extend citizenship beyond what he believes its framers intended.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Order never took effect

Trump signed the executive order on the first day of his second term as part of his broader immigration crackdown.

Lower courts blocked the policy before it could take effect, finding it conflicted with the 14th Amendment and the Supreme Court's landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

The administration argued that children born to people in the country illegally or temporarily are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and therefore are not entitled to automatic citizenship.

The Supreme Court rejected that argument.

Hundreds of thousands affected

Researchers estimated the order would have affected more than 250,000 babies born in the United States each year.

The proposed restrictions would have applied not only to people in the country illegally but also to many immigrants who are legally in the United States, including foreign students, temporary workers and some applicants for permanent residency.