Donald Trump took another stab at automatic citizenship.
By Catholics for Catholics
President Donald Trump took another crack at curbing habitual citizenship for people born in the United States after the Supreme Court spurned his earlier effort.
On Thursday, Trump signed two executive orders, reaching for various legal maneuvers to test the limits of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship.
Trump’s first order said children would be ineligible if born to “alien enemies,” members of foreign terrorist organizations, or foreign lobbyists. The second order said children of people who deceitfully request tourist visas for the intention of giving birth in the U.S. would not become citizens, according to a story by the Washington Times.
The White House said it is trying to use some of the little room left by the Supreme Court in its ruling in June, when it ended the President’s prior birthright citizenship ban as unconstitutional.
“We’re making adjustments,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
President Trump signed executive orders limiting birthright citizenship, including restrictions on ‘birth tourism,’ bypassing a Supreme Court ruling that struck down earlier restrictions as unconstitutional https://t.co/6vPjeyvFmr pic.twitter.com/DpyMkRrAOX
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 7, 2026
The President’s prior effort included denying automatic citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants and temporary visitors.
But the Supreme Court shot him down, contending both of those categories are protected by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil who fall under the jurisdiction of the government.
Still, the judges said there are only a few exceptions to that general rule.
One concession is children of foreign diplomats because their parents aren’t under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Another is children born to an occupying army.
In his new order, Trump expanded the pool of diplomats and foreign government employees whose children can be denied citizenship. And he likened foreign terrorists to an occupying army to deny their newborns automatic citizenship.
In addition, Trump’s order also negated citizenship to children of parents “engaged in a commercial transaction to purchase or access birthright citizenship … or engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.” And it covers cases when a foreign parent engages a U.S. surrogate mother.
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