The Bottom Line
The families won, and they won decisively. By a vote of six to three, the Supreme Court blocked President Trump’s Executive Order 14160 and held that babies born on American soil to parents who are here illegally or only temporarily are United States citizens the moment they are born. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of the Court and decided it on constitutional grounds: the Fourteenth Amendment itself guarantees this citizenship, and five justices signed that reasoning. A sixth justice, Brett Kavanaugh, agreed the order had to fall but on a narrower basis, saying it breaks a federal statute Congress already passed rather than the Constitution. You can read the entire case here.1
Here is what happens now. Trump’s order cannot be enforced anywhere in the country, the nationwide block on it stays in place, and birthright citizenship keeps working exactly the way it has for more than a century.
Former Special Counsel to the President of the United States, Ty Cobb, joined me just one hour after the decision dropped for an in-depth discussion of what it means. Watch here…
