April 1, 2026
Is every baby born in the United States an automatic citizen of the United States. Well — for more than 150 years – the answer has been yes – under the 14th amendment of the constitution. “All 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.” On top of that, the supreme court has ruled that yes – all babies born in the United States are citizens and congress has passed two separate laws saying the same thing. But the president is arguing that people who are in this country illegally or are in the country legally but temporarily are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because they are domiciled in or their allegiance is to another country. While domicile was definitely the word of the day during today’s two hours of oral arguments — even this conservative supermajority who likes to look the constitution based on what was happening at the time it was written…had a really hard time squaring that domicile circle. And I’m going to get to the domicile argument in a second – but first – I want to talk about the political argument the trump administration is trying to make and how it landed with the justices.
One of the reasons the Trump administration is trying to justify taking away birthright citizenship is because of what they see as a huge problem. Yes – the Trump administration believes illegal immigrants having babies in this country is an issue – but they see this new industry of birth tourism as a problem. Meaning – pregnant foreigners come to the United States on purpose so they can take advantage of the 14th amendment and give birth to their baby on US soil so their baby can have US citizenship. Even the chief was like – so?
Now let’s talk about this domicile argument. And to understand that you have to understand the Trump administration’s argument…which is to have US citizenship– the parents of that baby must have established “domicile” in the United States. What’s that?– well the legal definition of domicile says a person can claim domicile in a country if that person treats that country as their permanent home or the person lives in and has a substantial connection to that country. During today’s more than two hours of oral arguments in front of the supreme court and even president trump who was the first sitting president to be present in the courtroom to hear oral arguments domicile was brought up more times than I could count. But even with President Trump sitting there–this domicile argument fell a little flat – even with not just the liberal justices but also the conservative ones.
During the oral arguments the justices both conservative and liberal suggested if they sided with the Trump administration and overturn the way the 14th amendment has been interpreted for more than 150 years — it would cause chaos and we would have babies born here with no home and how would you decide who is domiciled or not. And there really was no answer to those questions.
But to be fair there were also some tough questions for the challengers who argued this whole argument of domicile and subject to the “jurisdiction there of” is ridiculous. They argued the constitution, the supreme court and congress has clearly said for more than 150 years that these babies are American citizens and the trump administration is grasping at straws.
As always – there’s no way to know exactly how the justices will rule in the end – but we’ll know for sure at the end of their term probably around late June.
Listen to the oral arguments here.
