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Supreme Court Takes Up Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order in Historic Showdown
BIG LEAGUE POLITICS ^ | Nov. 21, 2025 | N/A

Posted on 11/21/2025 2:13:01 PM PST by SharpRightTurn

The battle over who qualifies as an American at birth has officially reached the highest court in the land.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the historic challenge to President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order restricting birthright citizenship, setting the stage for what could be the most consequential interpretation of the 14th Amendment in more than a century.

Trump’s order—one of the signature actions of his America First immigration agenda—asserts that children born to illegal aliens on U.S. soil do not automatically receive citizenship, countering decades of bureaucratic interpretation and closing what critics call one of the most abused loopholes in American law.

A Constitutional Clash Long Overdue

For years, immigration hawks have argued that the federal government’s interpretation of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment has been twisted far beyond the intent of its authors—who were focused on guaranteeing citizenship to formerly enslaved Americans, not incentivizing mass illegal migration.

Trump’s team says the amendment was never meant to serve as a magnet for “birth tourism,” chain migration, or criminal cartels exploiting the maternity pipeline.

Opponents—including a coalition of progressive attorneys general—claim Trump has overstepped his authority, insisting that the 14th Amendment grants automatic citizenship regardless of immigration status.

But the Supreme Court’s originalist majority signaled deep skepticism Friday toward the idea that Congress or the courts must blindly accept a loophole that never existed in the amendment’s historical context.

Justices Zero In on 14th Amendment Text & Intent

During arguments, several justices pressed the challengers to explain why the United States should reward citizenship to individuals whose parents entered the country illegally or temporarily.

Justice Gorsuch questioned whether the Court has ever explicitly held that children of illegal aliens are guaranteed citizenship: “Show me the case where we have decided this question.”

Justice Thomas focused on Reconstruction-era debates showing overwhelming evidence that the authors did not intend universal, unconditional birth citizenship.

Meanwhile, the Court’s liberal bloc attempted to frame Trump’s order as discriminatory and destabilizing, warning of “statelessness” and “harm to families.”

But even Justice Kagan conceded that the Court was entering “largely uncharted” legal territory—an admission that the Left’s claims of settled law are far from accurate.

America First Leaders Rally Behind Trump

Conservatives blasted the lawsuit as yet another attempt to preserve the mass-migration system that enriches corporate donors and shifts political power to sanctuary regions.

Rep. Matt Gaetz said the case “will determine whether the United States has borders or not.”

Sen. J.D. Vance called birthright citizenship “the holy grail of the open-borders Left.”

Grassroots activists note that ending automatic citizenship for illegal aliens would remove one of the key incentives driving millions toward the southern border.

A Ruling That Could Reshape the Nation

The Court is expected to issue a decision by early summer 2026. If Trump prevails, the ruling could:

End birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens Reduce chain migration Reduce taxpayer obligations for benefits and entitlements Dismantle the “anchor baby” loophole Strengthen U.S. sovereignty and immigration enforcement

America First supporters argue that restoring constitutional clarity is essential for securing the borders and preventing foreign nationals from gaining automatic political footholds through exploitation.

For now, the country awaits a ruling that could redefine what it means to be an American in the modern era — and whether the Constitution protects U.S. sovereignty or the interests of globalist migration networks.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 14thamendment; aliens; anchorbabies; birthright; citizenship; fourteenthamendment; illegaltruth; originalism; scotus
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To: Brian Griffin
It would be absurd to say a child of Mexican Apaches born in the USA would be a US citizen, but a child of American Apaches born in the exact same place would not be a citizen.

Indians couldn't be citizens anyway, at least until the Indian citizenship act of 1924.

The 14th amendment started out by rejecting citizenship for Indians born here, so people need to realize that just being born here wasn't the deciding factor.

"Subject to the jurisdiction" was.

81 posted on 11/23/2025 4:24:19 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Jim Noble
They will vote 9-0 to uphold the text of XIV.

This is what I expect them to do as well. The legal minds of this nation have been polluted with English common law nonsense, and none of them are aware of the actual path we took to creating American citizenship.

82 posted on 11/23/2025 4:28:19 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Bob Wills is still the king
Serious question for you. Are illegal aliens subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at a different level than legal aliens?

So if we restart the Mexican/American war, which side gets to draft them legally?

83 posted on 11/23/2025 4:33:27 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Bob Wills is still the king
I think it might be 8-1 or even 7-2, but the text of the 14th Amendment says what it says. If you’re really a textualist, the meaning is very clear.

Clear as mud. If it were clear, there wouldn't have been so many cases over it for the last 150 years.

It is absolutely confusing and poorly written. It was also illegally ratified, but nobody cares about that.

84 posted on 11/23/2025 4:35:13 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Theodore R.
I don’t think that there is a remote chance that Trump appointee Barrett will vote to strike “birthright citizenship but hope I am wrong.

I always predict things will turn out badly, because if they turn out well, I am pleasantly surprised instead of unpleasantly surprised.

We should always be cynical about such things.

85 posted on 11/23/2025 4:37:16 AM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
Coercion makes all acts which result from it illegal. It renders them null and void, so the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments should all be considered invalid because they were not ratified correctly.

That argument is interesting. But there’s no way the Civil War was going to be fought without the issue of slavery being settled, such as it was. Even then, some states started to adopt Black Codes which greatly limited the rights of freed slaves, and those took decades to do away with.

86 posted on 11/23/2025 4:38:52 AM PST by Fury
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To: Mr. K

If they can bust down your door, take your stuff, and put you in handcuffs on a plane to South Sudan, you are most certainly “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.


87 posted on 11/23/2025 6:07:44 AM PST by Jim Noble (Let it turn to something else, Matty)
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To: SharpRightTurn
Some background from scotusblog.com:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/how-birthright-citizenship-made-it-back-to-the-supreme-court/

SCOTUSBlog states accurately the status as of 9/29/2025.

Although Sauer had the option to ask the court to fast-track its petition, he chose not to. Accordingly, if the justices decide to take the case (for which four votes are needed), it will likely schedule oral arguments for sometime in 2026 and reach a decision at the end of the upcoming term – most likely in late June or early July.

The thread article is a load of bollocks.

The article dated November 21, 2025 falsely states that oral arguments were heard on Friday, presumably November 21, 2025. The only oral argument this year related to citizenship was heard on May 15, 2025.

As of 11/23, cert has not been announced as granted and there is nothing but a petition before the court.

The thread article claims:

Justices Zero In on 14th Amendment Text & Intent

During arguments, several justices pressed the challengers to explain why the United States should reward citizenship to individuals whose parents entered the country illegally or temporarily.

Justice Gorsuch questioned whether the Court has ever explicitly held that children of illegal aliens are guaranteed citizenship: “Show me the case where we have decided this question.”

Justice Thomas focused on Reconstruction-era debates showing overwhelming evidence that the authors did not intend universal, unconditional birth citizenship.

Meanwhile, the Court’s liberal bloc attempted to frame Trump’s order as discriminatory and destabilizing, warning of “statelessness” and “harm to families.”

But even Justice Kagan conceded that the Court was entering “largely uncharted” legal territory—an admission that the Left’s claims of settled law are far from accurate.

Maybe some AI hallucinated that stuff about a non-existent oral argument. The quotes do not exist in the oral arguments in Casa. I asked Co-Pilot if any of the quotes were made by any of the justices in any oral argument and was provided the following:

Direct answer: There is no evidence that the alleged statements attributed to Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, Kagan, or others were ever made in oral arguments. The Supreme Court has not yet held oral arguments on Trump’s birthright citizenship order; the case is still at the petition or preliminary stage. The quotes in Big League Politics appear to be fabricated or speculative rather than drawn from any official transcript.

Respondent's Brief at 7-10 provides a delightful review of U.S. Supreme Court precedent directly on point.

3. Precedent interpreting the Citizenship Clause

After the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, this Court in Elk v. Wilkins, addressed the Citizenship Clause’s meaning with respect to Native Americans born in the United States. Explaining why the Citizenship Clause was understood to exclude certain Native Americans, Justice Gray reasoned that tribes, despite being within the United States, “were alien nations, distinct political communities,” with whom the United States dealt through treaties or specific legislation. Elk, 112 U.S. at 99. As a result, tribal members “are no more ‘born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ . . . than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations.” Id. at 102.

Fourteen years later, Justice Gray wrote this Court’s decision in Wong Kim Ark. The opinion exhaustively canvassed the Fourteenth Amendment’s text and history, English and early American common law, and the meaning of birthright citizenship to the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment. It held that the Citizenship Clause stood for “the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion of the United States, notwithstanding alienage of parents[.]” Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 688, 692-93. Thus, Wong Kim Ark, a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who could not themselves become U.S. citizens, was an American citizen. Id. at 704.

This Court’s decision hinged on the meaning of the Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The “real object” of that language was “to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the national government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases . . . recognized [as] exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.” Id. at 682. The sole exceptions are “children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state[.]” Id. This understanding was consistent with Elk, Justice Gray concluded, as that decision “concerned only members of the Indian tribes within the United States, and had no tendency to deny citizenship to children born in the United States of foreign parents . . . not in the diplomatic service of a foreign country.” Id. In emphasizing the broad scope of the citizenship grant, this Court explained that it “was not intended to impose any new restrictions upon citizenship, or to prevent any persons from becoming citizens by the fact of birth within the United States, who would thereby have become citizens according to the law existing before its adoption.” Id. at 676.

Since Wong Kim Ark, this Court has reiterated repeatedly that children born in this country are citizens without regard to their parents’ “primary allegiance” or domicile. See, e.g., Errico, 385 U.S. at 215 (explaining that a child had “acquired United States citizenship at birth” even though their noncitizen parents had entered the United States unlawfully); United States ex rel. Hintopoulos, 353 U.S. at 73 (stating that a child born to two “illegal[ly] presen[t]” noncitizens was “of course, an American citizen by birth”); see also Nishikawa v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 129, 131 (1958); Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717, 720 (1952); Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 329 (1939); Ah How v. United States, 193 U.S. 65, 65 (1904). And in Plyler v. Doe, this Court unanimously rejected the argument that undocumented immigrants fall outside the “jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. 457 U.S. at 211 n.10 (“[N]o plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”); id. at 243 (Burger, C.J., dissenting) (agreeing with this conclusion).

Neither Plaintiff's Petition, nor Reply Brief, addressed the precedential cases of Errico; Hintopoulos; Kawakita; Elg; Ah How, or Plyler.

88 posted on 11/23/2025 9:29:23 AM PST by woodpusher
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To: Jim Noble

um... wrong idea dude...

it is not AFTER YOU COME HERE ILLEGALLY we are talking about here

it is the subject of CITIENSHIP

Just being born here is not enough.

Being here LEGALLY and SUBJECT to our laws it what is says. Either that second part of the clause means something or it doesn’t.

Being arrested if your a criminal does not qualify.

If your stupid comment was the meaning than anybody getting arrested could be considered a citizen?

That was a dumb dumb dumb comment


89 posted on 11/23/2025 10:01:31 AM PST by Mr. K (no i think 10%consequence of repealing obamacare is worse than obamacare itself.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
"750,000 Americans died to hand *POWER* to a northern "elite" who benefited greatly from the Civil War."

Its no wonder you work so hard to try to ignore the informed words of Raoul Berger and Robert Bork.

90 posted on 11/23/2025 10:19:33 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot vote our way out of these problems. The only way out is to activist our way out.)
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To: Java4Jay

“The Court is expected to issue a decision by early summer 2026.
What do these people do all day ?”

That’s normal. All non emergency decisions come at the end of the term at the end of June.


91 posted on 11/24/2025 9:24:01 AM PST by CraigEsq (,)
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To: Fury
But there’s no way the Civil War was going to be fought without the issue of slavery being settled, such as it was.

We have all been taught to believe the Civil War was about slavery, but I have come to realize this is just propaganda.

In March of 1861, the Northern dominated Congress voted by a 2/3rds margin to pass the Corwin Amendment, which would make slavery legal and permanent in the United States. Therefore it would seem to me the issue of slavery was settled by an act of congress, at least so far as the US Government was concerned.

So if slavery was settled, what was the fight about?

The fight was about whether or not the Southern states would continue to pump 700 million dollars per year into the Northern economy.

Southern independence would greatly cut the amount of money flowing into wealthy Northern pockets; Into the pockets of powerful men, who would absolutely not take such an affront sitting down.

These powerful men marshalled the government into stopping Southern independence... and not because they cared about slaves. They pushed the government into acting because to do nothing would result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of income for their businesses.

And so the government acted on their behest, and launched a war against the Southern states to stop independence.

It had nothing to do with slavery beyond the fact the slaves were producing most of the money everyone was fighting over.

92 posted on 11/24/2025 2:16:14 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: ProgressingAmerica
Its no wonder you work so hard to try to ignore the informed words of Raoul Berger and Robert Bork.

I am always amazed that you preach "originalism" when it comes to the 14th, but absolutely oppose "originalism" when it comes to the morally valid process of creating constitutional amendments by gaining the consent of the governed.

The 13th, the 14th, and the 15th amendments were all passed by a dictatorial government using puppet governments in the Southern states who were voting completely *AGAINST* the will of the people.

How about we insist on originalism when it comes to amendments?

93 posted on 11/24/2025 2:19:42 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
So if slavery was settled, what was the fight about?

It doesn’t seem to me it was settled, as states still had to ratify.

94 posted on 11/24/2025 2:28:06 PM PST by Fury
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To: DiogenesLamp

I believe your perspective can be argued and you’ve done a good job doing so.


95 posted on 11/24/2025 2:30:34 PM PST by Fury
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