The second time may prove to be the charm for President Trump’s effort to rein in birthright citizenship and shut down the increasingly controversial practice of birth tourism.
President Trump signed two new executive orders late Wednesday aimed at identifying categories of children born to foreign nationals whom his administration believes are not constitutionally entitled to automatic citizenship, while separately cracking down on foreigners who travel to the United States specifically to give birth.
The move comes after a major Supreme Court setback for President Trump’s original approach. In Trump v. Barbara, the Court ruled that children born on American soil are automatically citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment regardless of their parents’ immigration or legal status.
Instead of throwing up his hands and walking away, President Trump is changing tactics.
“We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright, it was close,” President Trump said during an Oval Office signing ceremony. “But a very, very unfortunate decision. So we’re making adjustments.”
Those adjustments could produce another significant constitutional showdown.
President Trump also returned to his argument about the historical purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“This was done right after the Civil War,” President Trump said. “This was for the babies of slaves.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller provided additional details about how the administration intends to approach the issue.
According to Miller, the first executive order expands categories of people the administration considers outside automatic birthright citizenship protections, including “alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations, and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments.”
The second order takes direct aim at birth tourism.
Miller said the administration intends to deny visas to foreigners attempting to enter the country “to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen,” while also targeting organizations that arrange such trips.
That is where President Trump’s new strategy could prove much harder for opponents to dismiss.
Whatever someone thinks about the broader constitutional debate over birthright citizenship, treating American citizenship as the prize at the end of a carefully arranged vacation package is hardly what most Americans imagine when discussing the Fourteenth Amendment.
Miller cited Section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and described birth tourism as “by definition, a fraud on the American system” and “a fraud against the American government.”
President Trump indicated enforcement would be aggressive.
“We’re cracking down very big, very big, big crackdowns. … This will give us the right to do it in a much more forceful manner,” he said.
Asked whether the orders would withstand the inevitable legal challenges, President Trump responded simply, “I think it will.”
White House staff secretary Will Scharf said the administration is relying on “legally validated means,” including visa denials and law enforcement measures against organized birth-tourism operations.
That distinction matters because the administration appears to have learned from its previous defeat. Rather than merely attempting to resurrect the original policy, the White House is narrowing the battlefield and leaning on immigration powers it believes remain firmly within executive authority.
Naturally, lawsuits are practically guaranteed. Washington lawyers probably started drafting them before the ink on President Trump’s signature was dry.
The full legal picture will become clearer once the complete text of the executive orders is publicly available. Until then, the administration’s stated strategy suggests President Trump has no intention of allowing one Supreme Court loss to settle the broader political debate.
The Court closed one door. President Trump is checking the others, and birth tourism is now squarely in his administration’s sights.
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