Abstruse yet monumental: the scope and impact of the US supreme court’s birthright citizenship ruling

Mairelise Robinson, a US citizen who is six months pregnant, attends a protest in support of birthright citizenship outside the supreme court in Washington, on 15 May 2025. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

The US supreme court opinion on Friday in a case challenging Donald Trump’s attempt to unilaterally end the country’s longstanding tradition of birthright citizenship doesn’t actually rule on the constitutionality of the president’s order.

That question – of whether the president can do away with a right guaranteed by the the fourteenth amendment to the US constitution – is still being debated in the lower courts. Instead, the supreme court focused on the question of whether individual district court judges could block federal policies nationwide.