The passage of time will reveal the Supreme Court majority’s decision in Trump v. Barbara1 for what it is: a grandiloquent, outcome-oriented decision dressed in the foliage of faux-originalism, rooted in the sandy soils of rhetoric and improper historical practice. The majority’s key holding, that the children of practically anyone born on United States soil will forever and always be citizens of the United States at birth due to the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, can and will change based on a proper interpretation by a future Supreme Court majority. The precise avenue by which we will reach that result remains to be seen,2 but one possibility is that a future Congress will pass legislation that alters aspects of our existing statutory framework for implementing the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause to ensure it only applies to those subject to our “complete” jurisdiction.3
In Trump v. Barbara, five Supreme Court Justices held that children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are, in fact, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and therefore, are U.S. citizens at birth.4 In so doing, the Court set aside President Trump’s Executive Order of January 20, 2025, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.5
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