The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on the challenge to President Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. Earlier this year, Trump issued an executive order, which hasn’t gone into effect, saying that babies born in the United States would not automatically be entitled to citizenship if their parents are illegal aliens or temporary visitors. According to SCOTUSblog, the announcement came in a “brief list of orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday morning.” The high court is expected to rule on the issue next year. BREAKING: The Supreme Court will take up the case of President Trump's efforts to end birthright citizenship for illegal aliens. If they strike it down, it would end what is easily the biggest driver of illegal immigration to our country. pic.twitter.com/UHlUqorXRD — Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 5, 2025 SCOTUSblog shared additional background info: The United States is one of roughly 30 countries, including Canada and Mexico, that offer automatic citizenship to nearly everyone born there. Birthright citizenship was added to the Constitution in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was adopted following the Civil War. The section of that amendment known as the citizenship clause provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The amendment was intended to overrule one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions, its 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, holding that a Black person whose ancestors were brought to the United States and enslaved was not entitled to any protection from the federal courts because he was not a U.S. citizen. In a related case in 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in California to parents of Chinese descent. By a vote of 6-2, the court rejected the government’s argument that Wong Kim Ark was not a U.S. citizen, with Justice Horace Gray explaining that the 14th Amendment – although enacted to establish the citizenship of Black people – “affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens.” In his dissent, Chief Justice Melville Fuller argued that Wong Kim Ark was not a U.S. citizen because he could not be “completely subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States: as Chinese citizens, his parents had a duty to the emperor of China, and a federal law barred them from becoming U.S. citizens. CBS News explained that the order has not taken effect due to legal challenges after it was issued. “Lower courts uniformly blocked its implementation,” the outlet stated. The Justice Department has urged the high court to make a final ruling on the constitutionality of the executive order. BREAKING: The Supreme Court will decide whether President Trump's birthright citizenship order violates the Constitution. https://t.co/wKA2w8aOrc — The Associated Press (@AP) December 5, 2025 CBS News explained further: Solicitor General D. John Sauer said it’s a “mistaken view” that birth on U.S. soil confers citizenship, and said that understanding has had “destructive consequences.” But the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs in the New Hampshire case, argued that the Trump administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to “rewrite” the Citizenship Clause and unwind more than a century of the nation’s “everyday practice.” Arguments in the case are expected to take place next year, with a decision likely issued by the end of June or early July.