US President Donald Trump says he plans to ask the United States Supreme Court to rehear a recent case which struck down his order to end birthright citizenship for all individuals born in the US.
The court last month rejected Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship in the US, but speaking on Wednesday, the president said he will ask for the case to be heard again.
“AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY.”
The 6-3 ruling against Trump’s order represented a major blow to the US leader and his efforts to transform immigration policy.
Upon taking office on January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order seeking to bar those born in the US to parents on temporary legal statuses or without documentation from automatically receiving US citizenship.
Trump called the latest ruling “too bad for our country” and appealed to Republicans in Congress to pass legislation constricting birthright citizenship. That will likely prove to be an uphill battle, with public opinion polls regularly showing strong public support for the practice and the Supreme Court’s majority opinion suggesting a constitutional amendment would be required.
Trump’s chances of a new hearing appear low, with the Supreme Court rarely granting requests to rehear cases. It has been decades since the court last allowed a retrial after issuing a ruling in an argued case.
Since taking office, Trump has looked to overhaul nearly all forms of immigration in the US.
The court had previously handed the president several immigration victories in recent months, including allowing him to effectively do away with special legal status for residents of some crisis-hit countries, called Temporary Protected Status, and employing a controversial tactic of physically blocking asylum seekers from stepping on US soil, where the government is legally obligated to allow them to apply for protection.
But the Supreme Court voted against his bid to restrict birthright citizenship in the US, ruling that his directive violated language in the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment that confers citizenship to those born in the US who are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”.
Rights groups hailed the court’s decision. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Cecillia Wang, who argued the challenge at the Supreme Court, said the decision “reaffirms a fundamental American promise – if you are born here, you are a citizen”.
A Migration Policy Institute-Penn State study released in May of last year said an estimated 255,000 infants a year would be born in the US without citizenship under the order, increasing the undocumented population by 2.7 million by 2045.
It warned that the order “would create a self-perpetuating, multigenerational underclass – with US-born residents inheriting the social disadvantage borne by their parents and even, over time, their grandparents and great-grandparents”.
