The full official Supreme Court ruling is Trump v. Barbara, decided June 30, 2026. The Court rejected President Trump’s birthright-citizenship executive order and held that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully present or temporarily present are still U.S. citizens at birth under the 14th Amendment. The official PDF is here through the Court citation.

Bottom line

The ruling says:

Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment.

That is the Court’s holding.

The vote is best understood this way: 6–3 to block/strike the order, but 5–4 on the Constitution itself. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the main opinion, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson. Kavanaugh agreed the order could not stand, but he said he would have decided it under federal statute, not the Constitution. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented.

What Trump’s order tried to do

Trump’s Executive Order 14160 said birthright citizenship would not automatically apply when the mother was unlawfully present and the father was not a citizen or green-card holder, or when the mother was lawfully but temporarily present, such as on a student, work, tourist visa, or visa waiver, and the father was not a citizen or green-card holder.

The Supreme Court said that does not fit the 14th Amendment.

Why the Court ruled that way

The majority said “subject to the jurisdiction” means basically subject to U.S. law and U.S. governing authority while here. The Court relied heavily on United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case that recognized citizenship for a child born in San Francisco to noncitizen Chinese parents. The majority said the phrase does not turn on whether the parents are citizens, permanent residents, temporary visitors, or unlawfully present.

Roberts also pointed out that the words used in Trump’s order — “mother,” “father,” “lawful,” and “temporary” — are not in the Citizenship Clause.

What about “anchor babies”?

Legally, “anchor baby” is not a legal category. The legal question is whether a child born on U.S. soil is a citizen. After this ruling, the answer is generally yes, even if the parents are illegal immigrants, tourists, students, or temporary workers.

But here is the part people often misunderstand: the baby’s citizenship does not automatically legalize the parents. A U.S. citizen can petition for a parent only when the citizen is at least 21 years old, and the parent still has to go through immigration processing and may still face other legal barriers. The State Department says family immigration requires sponsorship by an immediate relative who is at least 21, and U.S. citizens may file petitions for a parent.

So, in plain English: the child may be a citizen, but the parents are not automatically protected from deportation, not automatically given green cards, and not automatically made citizens.

What the dissent argued

Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch argued the 14th Amendment should not be read so broadly. Thomas said the Citizenship Clause was meant for people born here who called America home and that lawful temporary visitors and at least some illegal immigrants should not automatically produce citizen children. Gorsuch agreed that children of temporary visitors should not automatically receive citizenship, though he expressed doubts about some harder cases involving parents who have long made the U.S. their home.

Important distinction from the earlier ruling

The earlier 2025 Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. CASA did not decide whether Trump’s birthright citizenship order was constitutional. It only limited lower courts’ power to issue nationwide or “universal” injunctions. The Court specifically said in 2025 that it was not deciding the birthright-citizenship merits.

This new Trump v. Barbara ruling is the one that actually answers the birthright-citizenship question.