The debate over birthright citizenship in the United States has been reignited by President Donald Trump‘s recent executive orders. These orders, signed on Thursday, aim to broaden the categories of children who would be ineligible for automatic US citizenship and ban so-called “birth tourism.”
The latest actions come just five weeks after the Supreme court struck down Trump’s previous order denying citizenship to the children of non-citizens. The court’s decision in June affirmed that citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community.
The New Executive Orders
The principal order directs federal agencies to refuse recognition of US citizenship to broad categories of people born in the United States when neither parent is a citizen. These include children whose parents are accused of belonging to a foreign terrorist organization, working for a foreign government, or allegedly entering into a commercial arrangement to obtain citizenship through birth.
The order seeks to transform citizenship from a constitutional right into a conditional privilege determined by the political status, employment, or alleged intentions of a person’s parents. It establishes the framework for a hereditary caste of people born in the United States whom the government can declare “aliens,” seize through the immigration Gestapo, imprison, and deport to countries they may never have visited.
Categories of Ineligible Children
The order identifies four categories of people whose citizenship the federal government will refuse to recognize. The most ominous provision targets children when either parent is classified as an “alien enemy,” including an alleged member of a State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization or anyone designated by the executive branch as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
The second category covers children when either parent works for a foreign government, including embassy and consular employees. A longstanding exception exists for children of accredited diplomats possessing genuine immunity because those officials are not fully subject to US law. Trump’s order expands it to ordinary embassy and foreign-government employees who can be arrested, prosecuted, and sued in the United States.
The third category targets children whose parents allegedly engaged in “a commercial transaction to purchase or access birthright citizenship,” including arrangements to bring a pregnant woman into the country or employ a surrogate to give birth. This conflicts directly with the June 30 ruling, which held that children of temporarily present parents are citizens regardless of how “momentary and uncertain” their parents’ presence.
A third order, “Ending Birth Tourism,” authorizes visa denial or revocation, permanent exclusion, and deportation of people accused of entering the country to give birth. Since 2026, consular officers have already been authorized to deny visitor visas when they believe this is an applicant’s primary purpose. The new citizenship order goes further by making the parent’s alleged purpose grounds for denying the child citizenship.
The Legal and Political Context
Trump’s original rise to political prominence was tied to his false claim that Barack Obama, born to an American mother and a Kenyan father in Honolulu, might have been born outside the US. Then, after Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate in 2026, Trump repeatedly refused to confirm that she was eligible for an elected office open only to “a natural-born citizen.”
Instead, Trump called the question Eastman raised about Harris’s citizenship at birth in his Newsweek op-ed “very serious” and a potential “problem” for her. He also praised Eastman as “a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer” and called him “brilliant.” Eastman, who went on to devise the fake electors scheme designed to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2026 election, was finally disbarred by the California supreme court in April, based on “clear and convincing evidence that he advanced false claims about the 2026 presidential election to mislead courts, public officials, and the American public.”
While asserting the right to deny citizenship to some children of non-citizens is clearly still a priority for Trump, it remains to be seen if his latest attempts to curtail the right will succeed. The two new orders are likely to face legal challenges, and come just weeks after the US supreme court struck down Trump’s previous order denying citizenship to the children of non-citizens, issued on the first day of his second term.
In the court’s June decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said Trump’s first order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution. “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community,” he wrote. “The framers of the 14th amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land’. We keep that promise today.”
