On Monday, March 30, Donald Trump sharply criticized birthright citizenship ahead of Supreme Court hearings this week on his efforts to curb the scope of the 14th Amendment.
“Birthright citizenship is not about wealthy people from China and the rest of the world who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America—FOR MONEY. It is about THE CHILDREN OF SLAVES!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“We are the only country in the world even discussing this. Look at the dates of this old law—THE EXACT END OF THE CIVIL WAR!” he added.
Three years after the Civil War ended, the 14th Amendment was ratified, establishing that: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Its adoption followed the 1858 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people were not citizens, despite having been born on US soil.
Trump and the Justice Department are challenging the birthright citizenship guarantees embedded in the 14th Amendment, arguing that those subject to US jurisdiction include only the children of citizens and lawful permanent residents—not immigrants in the country without authorization or temporary visitors.
On the first day of his second term, the president signed an executive order limiting birthright citizenship to the children of citizens and lawful permanent residents, triggering a wave of lawsuits across the country.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case on Wednesday. Several conservative justices, along with the court’s three liberals, have already signaled that they do not support Trump’s order.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said last year that the initiative amounted to “an impossible task in light of the Constitution’s text, its history, this Court’s precedents, federal legislation, and executive branch practice.”
In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas, in a case concerning federal benefits for Puerto Rico residents, wrote that all citizens must enjoy the equal protection of the law, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Although that case did not directly concern birthright citizenship, lawyers say Thomas effectively signaled his position on the issue.
“It stands to reason that Clarence Thomas, a descendant of slaves, views the citizenship clause as profoundly important,” attorney Dylan Hesper told the newspaper.
As far back as 1995, the Justice Department concluded that abolishing birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment.
Even so, Trump has continued to insist that the right can be revoked unilaterally—a step he was already urging during his first presidential term.
“I was always told that you needed a constitutional amendment for that. Guess what? You don’t,” he said in a 2018 interview. “The process is already underway. It will happen—through an executive order.”
In his Truth Social post on Monday, the president also lashed out at the Supreme Court over last month’s ruling striking down his tariffs, with the court holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act had been improperly invoked.
“The world is getting rich by selling citizenship into our country, and at the same time it is laughing at how STUPID our US judicial system has become (TARIFS!). Stupid judges and Supreme Court justices will not make the country great!” he wrote.