Donald Trump responded to the judicial blow dealt to him by the Supreme Court of the United States 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 president wrote on his Truth Social network this Tuesday, signing the message with his name in uppercase letters.
The sarcasm, brief yet impactful, is his response to the ruling by the high court that blocked, by a vote of six 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 in which foreign nationals travel to the United States for their children to obtain nationality.
It specifically mentioned Chinese citizens as the main beneficiaries of this mechanism, which explains the choice of Xi Jinping as the recipient of its ironic message.
By turning his judicial defeat into a geopolitical message, Trump shifted the debate from a constitutional arena to one of 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 "full 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 process would also require 60 votes in the Senate to overcome the parliamentary filibuster, which is considered highly unlikely in the current Congress.
The ruling that Trump could not stop
The decision, issued in the case Trump v. Barbara, invalidates Executive Order 14,160 that 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 were citizens or permanent residents.
The president 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 in the past and today, 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 thesis that the court outright rejected.
The conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh, although he voted with the majority, added an important nuance: "Trump and other politicians can change the norm through legislation."
The three dissenting votes were from the conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.
A defeat with context
This ruling represents the third significant judicial 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 upheld key aspects of its immigration agenda, including the termination 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 implemented.
The Cuban-American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar distanced herself from Trump and supported the ruling.
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