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Donald Trump responded to the judicial blow dealt by the United States Supreme Court regarding birthright citizenship with a phrase that is already circulating as one of the most memorable of his presidency.
“I would like to congratulate President Xi and the great country of China on their tremendous victory regarding birthright citizenship!”, the leader wrote on his Truth Social account this Tuesday, signing the message with his name in uppercase letters.
The sarcasm, brief but impactful, is his response to the ruling where the high court blocked, by six votes to three, his attempt to eliminate automatic citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visitors born on U.S. soil.
Irony as a Political Weapon
Trump has repeatedly stated that automatic citizenship encourages what is known as “birth tourism”, a practice where foreign citizens travel to the United States so their children can obtain citizenship.
He specifically mentioned Chinese citizens as the primary beneficiaries of this mechanism, which explains the choice of Xi Jinping as the recipient of his ironic message.
By turning his judicial defeat into a geopolitical message, Trump shifted the debate from constitutional grounds to rivalry with China, a narrative that directly resonates with his electoral base.
After the ruling was announced, the president urged Congress to pass legislation to end birthright citizenship, offering his "total and absolute support."
However, legal experts warn that amending the 14th Amendment would require a constitutional reform, not just a simple law.
The ordinary legislative route would also require 60 votes in the Senate to overcome the parliamentary blocking mechanism, something deemed very unlikely in the current Congress.
The ruling that Trump could not prevent
The decision, issued in the case of Trump v. Barbara, invalidates Executive Order 14,160, which Trump signed on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term.
That order instructed federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of children born if neither of their parents was a citizen or permanent resident.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, wrote the majority opinion with the support of both conservative and liberal justices. His argument was compelling:
"Citizenship, both then and now, was the right to have rights, to participate freely in our political community. The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to all persons born free in this land. Today we uphold that promise."
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, establishes that all persons born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the country.
Trump's executive order argued that the children of undocumented immigrants are not fully subject to that jurisdiction, a claim that the court outright rejected.
The conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh, although he voted with the majority, added a relevant nuance: "Trump and other politicians can change the standard through legislation."
The three dissenting votes came from the conservative judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.
A defeat with context
This ruling represents the third significant legal defeat for Trump before the Supreme Court in recent months, following the February 2026 decision that invalidated his blanket tariffs and the one that prevented him from dismissing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve.
However, just five days earlier, on June 25, the same Court had endorsed key aspects of its immigration agenda, including the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Haitians and 7,000 Syrians.
According to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute, approximately 255,000 children born each year to non-citizen parents would have lost their citizenship had the executive order been enforced.
The Cuban-American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar distanced herself from Trump and supported the ruling.
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