WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court will hear arguments at 10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, on the constitutionality of an executive order that would deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the United States to people who are in the country illegally or temporarily. President Donald Trump signed the executive order on January 20, 2025, his first day back in office.

The executive order is titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship." It states that people in the United States illegally or temporarily are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and therefore their U.S.-born children are not entitled to citizenship. Every court to have considered the executive order has found it illegal and prevented it from taking effect.

U.S. District Judge Joseph N. LaPlante in New Hampshire ruled that the executive order likely violates both the Constitution and federal law. Lower-court rulings over the summer prevented the executive order from taking effect and set up the current Supreme Court case.

The first sentence of the 14th Amendment makes citizens of "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." An 86-year-old federal law has been widely understood to grant citizenship to everyone born in the United States, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and invading armies.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that the court should use the case to correct long-enduring misconceptions about the Constitution's meaning. In his brief, Sauer likened the case to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a Supreme Court dissent that defending the executive order was an impossible task in light of the Constitution's text, history, the Court's precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice. Sotomayor was joined by the other two liberal justices in a dissent from a Supreme Court decision that limited the use of nationwide injunctions in an earlier round of the birthright citizenship dispute.

"We have the president of the United States trying to radically reinterpret the definition of American citizenship," said Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director. Pregnant mothers and their advocates challenging the executive order have said the administration's arguments lack merit.

More than 250,000 babies born in the United States each year would be affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University's Population Research Institute. The birthright citizenship restrictions would apply to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards.