President Donald Trump has opened a new front in the battle over birthright citizenship, signing two executive orders designed to restrict what his administration calls “birth tourism” and narrow the circumstances in which children born in the United States automatically receive American citizenship.
The actions, signed on August 6, come only weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s broader effort to restrict birthright citizenship for children born to parents who were unlawfully or temporarily present in the country. The new approach is significantly narrower, but it is already expected to generate another round of constitutional challenges.
The full orders can be read through the White House’s official pages for Ending Birth Tourism and Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.
Trump Takes a Narrower Approach to Birthright Citizenship
Trump’s latest orders represent a strategic shift following his defeat at the Supreme Court.
His January 2025 executive order sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States when the mother was unlawfully present or temporarily in the country and the father was neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident.
On June 30, 2026, however, the Supreme Court ruled that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present are citizens at birth under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Court found that Trump’s earlier order could not be reconciled with the constitutional guarantee.
The official Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Barbara states that the constitutional rule historically covers children born on American soil while recognizing only limited exceptions.
Trump’s new orders attempt to operate within, while also expanding, those exceptions.
What the New Citizenship Order Changes
The citizenship order directs federal agencies not to recognize citizenship in several specific circumstances when neither parent is a U.S. citizen.
Among the categories identified by the administration are children whose parents are classified as “alien enemies,” including certain members of designated terrorist organizations, and children of some foreign government employees working in the United States.
The order also covers cases in which a parent is accused of engaging in a commercial transaction specifically intended to obtain birthright citizenship. That language includes arrangements designed to ensure that a mother is present in the United States to give birth and certain commercial surrogacy arrangements connected to obtaining citizenship.
The administration is effectively arguing that fraud or deliberate commercial schemes to obtain citizenship should fall outside the normal protections associated with birthright citizenship.
The order could also affect births in U.S. territories where citizenship is not independently granted by federal statute. Major territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam currently receive citizenship protections through federal law, while American Samoa has a different legal status.
Separate Order Directly Targets Birth Tourism
The second executive order focuses specifically on foreign nationals travelling to the United States for the purpose of giving birth.
The White House defines birth tourism as entering the United States using a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on American soil, as well as facilitating another person’s entry for that purpose.
The order gives the secretaries of State and Homeland Security authority to develop regulations, policies and operational guidance intended to stop the practice.
Possible enforcement measures include denying visas or travel authorization, preventing entry, revoking existing travel permission and taking action against individuals or organizations that facilitate birth-tourism arrangements. The order also leaves room for humanitarian and national-interest exemptions.
The administration’s official explanation is available in the White House birth tourism executive order.
Trump described the practice as people effectively “buying their way in,” arguing that commercial companies had developed businesses around helping foreign nationals give birth in the United States.
Birth Tourism Was Already Subject to Visa Restrictions
The latest action does not begin U.S. restrictions on birth tourism from scratch.
During Trump’s first administration, the State Department introduced rules allowing officials to deny certain visitor visas when they had reason to believe an applicant’s primary purpose was travelling to the United States to give birth so that the child would acquire citizenship.
That means immigration authorities already had mechanisms for questioning and potentially rejecting applications linked to birth tourism. The new order expands the administration’s emphasis on enforcement and directs federal agencies to pursue the practice more aggressively.
Supporters of stricter controls argue that visitors should use visas only for the purposes for which they were issued and that commercial operations designed to exploit immigration rules undermine confidence in the system.
Critics, however, argue that enforcing visa rules is legally different from attempting to deny citizenship to a child after birth.
That distinction is likely to become central in the next round of litigation.
How Large Is Birth Tourism in the United States?
The exact scale of birth tourism remains difficult to establish.
There is no official federal count showing how many women enter the United States specifically to give birth and obtain citizenship for their children. Reuters noted that no official figures track the practice or its overall cost to taxpayers.
Estimates vary substantially.
Some immigration-policy groups have estimated tens of thousands of births annually, while government data based on mothers with foreign addresses can produce considerably lower figures. TIME reported that fewer than 10,000 U.S. births in 2024 involved mothers listing foreign addresses, while other research has estimated roughly 22,000 to 26,000 births potentially connected with birth tourism each year.
For comparison, approximately 3.6 million babies were born in the United States in 2025.
The uncertainty over the numbers has contributed to disagreement about whether birth tourism is a major immigration problem or a relatively limited practice receiving disproportionate political attention.
The 14th Amendment Remains the Central Legal Issue
Any challenge to the new citizenship restrictions will ultimately return to the language of the 14th Amendment.
The Citizenship Clause provides that people born or naturalized in the United States and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are U.S. citizens.
The Supreme Court’s June ruling strongly reaffirmed that principle for children whose parents are unlawfully or temporarily present. The Court described the historical exceptions as narrow and specifically discussed children of foreign ministers and individuals born outside the sovereign’s effective control.
Readers can review the constitutional language and related citizenship law through Cornell Law School’s summary of Trump v. Barbara.
The administration’s legal theory is that the new orders target categories that either already fall within traditional exceptions or can legitimately be treated as extensions of them.
Opponents dispute that interpretation.
The American Civil Liberties Union has said the Supreme Court has already settled the fundamental constitutional question and predicted that another attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship by executive order will fail.
Another Major Court Fight Appears Likely
The White House has clearly designed the new policy more carefully than the January 2025 order.
Instead of attempting to deny citizenship broadly to children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visa holders, the administration is concentrating on foreign government employees, designated enemy categories, alleged fraud and commercial birth-tourism arrangements.
That narrower construction could make the coming litigation more complicated.
Courts may examine each category separately rather than deciding the entire order through one broad constitutional question. The citizenship order also contains a severability clause, meaning that if one provision is struck down, the administration intends the remaining provisions to continue operating.
Still, legal uncertainty remains substantial.
Reuters reported that legal experts questioned how much practical effect the new orders could have following the Supreme Court’s June decision, while immigration-rights organizations immediately signaled that challenges were likely.
For continued reporting on the developing legal battle, Reuters’ coverage of Trump’s new citizenship orders provides details on both the administration’s case and the response from immigration advocates.
Birthright Citizenship Debate Returns to Washington
The August executive orders ensure that birthright citizenship will remain one of the most contentious immigration and constitutional issues of Trump’s second term.
For the administration, the measures represent an effort to prevent immigration rules and automatic citizenship from being used through deliberate commercial schemes. For critics, they represent another attempt to accomplish through presidential authority what the Supreme Court has already said cannot be done more broadly.
The decisive question will not simply be whether the federal government can restrict birth tourism. Courts are also likely to examine whether alleged deception by a parent can alter the constitutional citizenship rights of a child born on U.S. soil.
That distinction could determine whether Trump’s narrower strategy survives where his first order failed.
