President Trump signed a pair of executive orders restricting birthright citizenship and cracking down on so-called birth tourism, a narrower second attempt after the Supreme Court rejected his broader approach in June.
Trump spoke to reporters at the White House after signing the orders, which deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born to mothers who "expressly and deceptively" enter the country to give birth, to children of parents classified as alien enemies, including members of federally designated terrorist groups, and to children of certain foreign diplomats. One order specifically targets the use of surrogate mothers to obtain birthright citizenship. The orders apply only to future births, the Washington Examiner reported.
The move comes roughly six weeks after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's original, broader executive order on birthright citizenship, a ruling that the New York Post noted left the 14th Amendment's citizenship protections intact. Rather than abandon the effort, the administration retooled its approach around what it calls longstanding constitutional exceptions and existing statutory authority.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller framed the orders as legally sound, arguing the administration is building on the Supreme Court's own June 30 ruling, not defying it. Miller contended the June decision validated the legal tools the administration is now using to "expand the definitions of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship" under Section 215A of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the federal statute governing immigration classifications.
Miller told reporters:
"What we're doing is taking legally validated means that are clearly within our disposal and targeting them square on to this birth tourism industry."
He added that "there's absolutely nothing in here that runs afoul of any of the Supreme Court's opinions on the subject." Miller also described birth tourism as "by definition a fraud on the American system, on the American taxpayer," and said the orders ensure "large numbers of people who wrongly would be getting birthright citizenship will no longer be eligible for those benefits." The orders also target what Miller called "large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments," Breitbart reported.
Trump himself was blunt about the problem he sees. He said people are "building businesses" around birthright citizenship and that "hundreds of thousands" are exploiting birth tourism. He called the current system "a disgrace."
Trump told reporters at the White House:
"They're buying their way in, and we're not going to let it happen."
He also referenced the historical origins of the 14th Amendment, arguing that birthright citizenship was introduced after the Civil War to ensure children of slaves were recognized as citizens, not to create a pathway for foreign nationals to obtain citizenship through strategic travel. The administration's position has been consistent on this point since Trump began using executive authority to reshape federal agencies and immigration enforcement earlier this year.
The two orders represent a deliberate recalibration. Trump's first executive order on birthright citizenship, announced during his campaign as early as October 2018 and issued after he took office, attempted a sweeping restriction on automatic citizenship for children of non-citizens. The Supreme Court struck that order down in late June 2026, and in the same ruling limited the use of nationwide injunctions against the broader policy, a procedural outcome the administration now treats as partial vindication.
The Washington Free Beacon has noted that the constitutional debate centers on the 14th Amendment's phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Supporters of broad birthright citizenship read the clause as covering virtually everyone born on U.S. soil. The administration reads it more narrowly, arguing that people who enter under false pretenses or who owe allegiance to hostile foreign entities fall outside its protections.
The United States and Canada are the only two advanced nations that offer unrestricted birthright citizenship, a fact that Trump has cited repeatedly. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits," Trump said in earlier remarks on the subject. "It's ridiculous. And it has to end."
Not everyone agrees the president has the authority to act unilaterally. Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, has argued that restricting birthright citizenship "is not something that can be done by executive action alone." The administration disputes that reading, and Miller's public comments make clear the White House believes the June ruling gave it room to act within narrower bounds.
The orders will almost certainly face court challenges. Immigration advocates, civil rights organizations, and constitutional scholars have argued that the Supreme Court's June ruling actually reaffirmed broad birthright citizenship protections under the 14th Amendment, not narrowed them. Groups that successfully challenged Trump's first executive order have signaled they are prepared to return to court, Newsmax reported. Democratic-led states are also expected to file suit.
One provision likely to draw particular scrutiny involves U.S. territories. The orders potentially deny birthright citizenship to children born in American territories, but the Washington Examiner noted that only Congress can act to end citizenship for children born in those jurisdictions. That gap between executive ambition and legislative authority could become a focal point for challengers. The broader question of how far executive power extends on matters traditionally settled by statute or constitutional amendment has been a recurring theme of Trump's second term.
The provision targeting children of "alien enemies" raises its own definitional questions. The orders include members of federally declared terrorist groups in that category, but the specific statutory definition the administration is relying on, beyond the general reference to Section 215A, remains unclear from the text of the orders as described so far.
The birth tourism orders fit into a larger pattern of executive action on immigration. Trump has signed major homeland security legislation and issued a string of orders aimed at tightening border enforcement, restricting asylum claims, and expanding the federal government's authority to act without waiting for Congress.
The administration's argument on birth tourism is straightforward: a mother who enters the United States under false pretenses, claiming to be a tourist while intending to give birth, has committed a fraud that should void the citizenship claim of the child. Miller's language frames the issue in transactional terms, describing an "industry" that exploits American generosity. Trump's framing is sharper: wealthy foreigners gaming the system at the expense of American taxpayers and lawful residents.
Whether the courts agree that executive orders can draw these lines, or whether the 14th Amendment's protections are as broad and automatic as opponents argue, will likely be settled only after months or years of litigation. The Supreme Court's recent willingness to revisit long-standing precedents on executive power gives the administration reason to believe it has a fighting chance.
Several key questions remain unanswered. The official titles and executive order numbers have not been widely published. The precise scope of the surrogate-mother provision, how the government intends to identify and enforce restrictions on surrogacy arrangements, is unclear. And the administration has not explained how it will determine, at the moment of birth, whether a mother entered the country "expressly and deceptively" to deliver a child.
For decades, both parties talked about fixing a system that rewards people who break the rules. One side kept talking. The other just signed.
