“Birthright Citizenship” Oral Argument to Take Place Wednesday Morning

by Sharon Rondeau

(Mar. 31, 2026) — On Wednesday beginning at 10:00 AM EDT, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump, et al. v Barbara, et al., known colloquially as the “birthright citizenship” case.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14160 titled, “PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP,” whose purpose is stated as:

The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift.  The Fourteenth Amendment states:  “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  That provision rightly repudiated the Supreme Court of the United States’s shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race. 

“… the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” the order continues.  “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’  Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that ‘a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.”

Challenges were filed in three district courts, whose judges enjoined the implementation of the order through “nationwide injunctions” and the administration appealed.

In late June, the Supreme Court issued its opinion that federal judges were overstepping their authority by issuing nationwide injunctions but left the merits of the actual case — the correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause — for its next term, which began in October.

For decades, both the federal and state governments have considered anyone born within the United States an automatic citizen, but the Trump administration believes children of illegal aliens and short-term visitors should not receive that designation.

Children born in the U.S. whose parents were foreign diplomats temporarily living in the U.S. have almost universally been excluded from acquiring American citizenship.

On September 6, 2025, this publication reported the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals having upheld the opinion of a lower federal court when it ruled a child born in the United States to a Nicaraguan diplomat should not have been considered a U.S. citizen as he was for his entire life.

The plaintiff, Roberto Moncada, sued the State Department for the 2018 revocation of his citizenship based on the finding that his father enjoyed diplomatic immunity in his role as an attaché.

On page 8 of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion, it referenced Emmerich de Vattel, author of “The Law of Nations” published in 1758 and utilized often, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, as a guide in establishing the new nation after its separation from the United Kingdom in 1776.

Vattel’s definition of the term “natural born Citizen” is considered by many to directly apply to the Article II, Section 1, clause 5 requirement reserved solely for the president and commander-in-chief by the Framers.

On Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump suggested he will attend the hearing, which would be a novel occurrence.

While the high court does not permit cameras in the courtroom, a live audio feed will be provided for the interested public and a transcript posted “later in the day.”

Oral argument is scheduled to last one hour. To listen live, click the “Live Audio” icon at the upper-right of the screen.

Updated, April 1, 2026, 9:27 a.m. EDT