President Donald Trump said he plans to ask the Supreme Court to rehear the birthright citizenship case after the court ruled against his effort to undo the long-standing principle that all individuals born in the United States are American citizens.
Trump’s target is plain. A president who signed an executive order on his first day back in office is now asking the same court to reopen a case it decided just 9 days ago, after the justices blocked his bid to deny citizenship to children born on American soil. The machinery of state power moved first against immigrant families, then moved again to keep the fight alive.
Who Gets Hit First
Trump issued the executive order ending birthright citizenship 1 year ago, on Jan. 20, 2025, as part of a suite of policies to crack down on legal and illegal immigration, Reuters said. The order sought to prevent children of immigrants in the country without authorization from automatically becoming U.S. citizens because they were born in the United States. That’s the hierarchy in its raw form: a presidential decree aimed downward at babies, parents, and families with the least power to resist.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on June 30 blocked that order. The majority held that babies born in the United States are automatically citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Reuters said the court ruled Trump’s directive violated language in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment that confers citizenship to those born in the United States who are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that children born to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily in the United States satisfy the citizenship clause, which says, "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."
Trump answered with the language of siege. In a post on Truth Social, he said, "This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision," and wrote that he plans to ask for the rehearing "IMMEDIATELY." Reuters quoted Trump as saying, "AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong," and, "I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY." CNBC also quoted Trump saying, "This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don't change their absolutely insane decision."
The Court’s Gatekeeping
Under the Supreme Court’s rules, parties in a case have 25 days to petition for a rehearing to challenge a judgment or decision based on the merits. That gives the powerful another procedural corridor to keep pressing the same fight, even after a ruling has already landed. USA TODAY said such rehearings have rarely been granted and that Trump’s request would be a long-shot bid for a different outcome in a case the court so recently decided.
CNBC said the Supreme Court rarely grants rehearings of its decisions and reportedly has not agreed to rehear a ruling of a case already argued since 1965, while the last time it reversed a decision it had made in an argued case was 1956. Reuters said the court has not done so after issuing a ruling in an argued case in decades. The ritual is familiar: the institution closes one door, then lets the losing side knock anyway.
Congress, the Other Locked Door
Trump quickly called on Congress to take legislative action to prohibit birthright citizenship, but USA TODAY said that because a majority of justices found that birthright citizenship is constitutionally protected under the 14th Amendment, prohibiting the policy would seemingly require amending the Constitution. That would need support from two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the nation’s state legislatures. The numbers alone show how narrow the path is when the state wants to rewrite a basic right through its own channels.
House Speaker Mike Johnson offered the usual promise of institutional repair. USA TODAY quoted him as saying, "If there is a bill that can fix that, we’ll advance that immediately," in a July 5 interview on Fox News. It’s the same old script: a legal fight at the top, a legislative fix in the middle, and the people most affected left waiting for whichever branch of power decides their status.
Trump’s push for rehearing keeps the pressure on a system built to sort human beings by paperwork and jurisdiction. The court said babies born in the United States are citizens. Trump wants another shot at the machinery anyway.