US President Donald Trump has once again moved to restrict birthright citizenship, a right recognized under the US Constitution. The move comes just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a sweeping plan aimed at ending automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants and other foreign nationals who are not permanent residents, according to the British newspaper *The Guardian*.
On Thursday, August 6, Trump signed two separate executive orders. One seeks to expand the categories of people whose children would be ineligible for automatic citizenship, while the other targets so-called “birth tourism,” in which foreign nationals travel to the United States specifically to give birth and secure US citizenship for their children. Both orders are expected to face legal challenges in court.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship.
He said the court had made a “very unfortunate” decision on the issue, adding that the ruling had been decided by a narrow margin. Trump argued that the decision was unfair and said his administration was making changes to address it.
Under the new orders, the administration seeks to broaden the definition of children who would not qualify for birthright citizenship.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and one of the key architects of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies, said the new order is intended to cover children of members of “foreign terrorist organizations” as well as children of a broad category of people who lobby or work on behalf of foreign governments. However, it remains unclear exactly who would fall into the latter category.
The order also proposes expanding an existing exemption involving the children of foreign diplomats to include children of a wider range of foreign government employees. It would also deny citizenship to people born in certain US territories or territorial waters where federal law does not provide for citizenship. At present, the only such territory is American Samoa.
In addition, the order states that children whose parents have engaged in fraudulent activities to obtain citizenship would also be excluded from birthright citizenship.
The second executive order targets “birth tourism” by directing federal agencies to take action against those who arrange such travel. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that millions of people have used the practice.
“They have made a mockery of birthright citizenship,” Trump said, arguing that businesses had been built around the practice. “That’s not the way the system is supposed to work. It’s a disgrace. They are buying citizenship with money, and we are not going to allow it anymore.”
However, data from the Migration Policy Institute, based on census information, estimates that between 22,000 and 26,000 babies are born in the United States each year through birth tourism. Meanwhile, government data for 2024 recorded only about 9,600 births involving foreign addresses, representing less than 1% of all births in the United States that year.
Under existing US law, using a visa under the pretense of tourism with the intention of traveling to the United States to give birth and secure citizenship for a child can already constitute visa fraud and is illegal.
As a result, questions remain over what practical changes the new executive order will introduce beyond laws that are already in place.
