The US supreme court has upheld birthright citizenship, which provides nearly all people born in the country with citizenship, ruling against a central piece of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
Trump called the ruling “too bad for our Country”, but said the US Congress should now take up the matter legislatively, suggesting another avenue to keep the issue alive.
“No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “They will have my Complete and Total Support!”
The president had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term that sought to undo birthright citizenship. The order would override the US constitution, which it cannot do, though his administration has argued the order instead interprets the constitution correctly.
US supreme court upholds birthright citizenship in blow to Trump agenda
“Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” the ruling says.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion. He was joined by the liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett. The conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the judgment but dissented in part. The conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch filed dissenting opinions. The court’s writings in the ruling span 194 pages, nearly 90 of which were written by Thomas in dissent, his longest in his tenure on the court.
Dismantling birthright citizenship is a key facet of Trump’s agenda. He filed an executive order to end it on his first day back in office for his second term. He attended the oral arguments in person when the court heard the case, the first time a sitting president had attended oral arguments.
US supreme court rules states can exclude trans athletes from female sports
The US supreme court has upheld laws in two conservative states excluding transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in a far-reaching ruling likely to pave the way for similar bans throughout the US and handing Donald Trump a key “culture war” victory.
The court voted to overturn previous judgments issued by lower courts in favor of two trans students who had sued after being barred from competing in West Virginia and Idaho respectively.
Alleged Epstein victim and Trump accuser living in fear of retaliation, relative says
A woman known as Jane Doe 4 in the Jeffrey Epstein files is “staying off the grid” and lives in fear of retaliation from the Trump administration amid an escalating controversy over its handling of her case, according to a family member.
“Trauma is brutal. Chronic trauma destroys,” said the relative, who described the woman’s life as layers of abuse dating back to early childhood. “She’s coping as best she can.”
‘Historic Event’: Trump announces Republican midterm convention
Donald Trump has announced that Republicans will stage their first ever national convention ahead of the midterm elections, a move aimed at energizing voters as the party fights to hold its narrow congressional majorities in November.
Trump raked in more than $1bn from crypto businesses in 2025, filing shows
Donald Trump raked in more than $1bn from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Monday shows, giving a substantial boost to his annual income.
In his second term, the president and his family have heavily invested in digital money and various crypto businesses with Trump announcing at the start of 2025 that he wanted the US to be the “crypto capital of the world”. Trump’s crypto earnings are in addition to profit from his legal settlements, real estate and royalty deals.
US supreme court strikes down limits on campaign spending
One of the last remaining barriers between wealthy donors sending unlimited funds to federal political candidates fell after the US supreme court struck down a lower court ruling that limited spending by political parties in support of their candidates.
Trump administration puts religious freedom at heart of US health policy
The Trump administration is moving religious freedom to the forefront of its health policies, a move that will likely affect reproductive health, LGBTQ+ healthcare, and vaccine policy.
“They are very much putting religious freedom front and center,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco. But “it tends to privilege a conservative form of Christianity and, for example, protect discrimination against LGBTQ people”.
What else happened today:
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A Roman Catholic nun was released from the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the agency arrested her while she walked to mass in her habit in south Texas.
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The US public broadcasting organization National Public Radio (NPR) on Tuesday took the unusual step of formally retracting a major news story, after it published what seemed like a bombshell scoop that the supreme court justice Samuel Alito was retiring.
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Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, issued a veiled warning to oil and gas companies to lower their prices on Tuesday, a day after Donald Trump berated those retailers on social media for not dropping their prices fast enough and demanded they target $2.50 a gallon.
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China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday.
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Kash Patel may have flouted legal constraints and the FBI’s disciplinary code in prematurely divulging arrests in an alleged plot to attack this month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House, bureau veterans have alleged.
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More than $4bn (£3bn) is to be spent upgrading the US government’s military and spy bases in the UK, according to official documents that shed light on the UK’s apparent role as a secretive site for American nuclear weapons.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on Monday, 29 June.
