Donald Trump issued a new Trump birthright citizenship order last week, and it purports to strip citizenship from some Americans. The order is narrower than his earlier attempt, but it is built to press the Supreme Court on how far birthright citizenship can be restricted.
Trump titled the order “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” It targets children of two non-citizen parents when either parent belongs to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and children of foreign nationals who work in their nation’s embassies or similar diplomatic roles but do not enjoy diplomatic immunity from US law.
Trump v. Barbara
The new order comes after the Supreme Court reaffirmed that everyone born in the United States who is subject to US law is a citizen in Trump v. Barbara in 2026. That decision followed United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, when the Court first ruled that everyone born in the United States and subject to its laws are citizens.
Trump’s earlier executive order tried to strip citizenship from many Americans born in the United States, including former Vice President Kamala Harris. The Supreme Court invalidated that earlier order in 2025, and the new version is written more tightly than the one that came before it.
Kamala Harris
Harris appears in the story as the clearest example of how far Trump’s first order went. If that earlier order had been in force at her birth, it would have stripped citizenship from her.
The new order does not sweep that broadly, but it still raises the same fight in smaller form. Trump appears to be experimenting with where the line is for the justices, and the order is designed to test whether one more justice’s vote can move the Court toward accepting any part of a citizenship limit.
Supreme Court Vote
The source says four justices in Barbara were willing to overrule at least some of the precedent, and two of them were Republicans. That leaves Trump looking for one more justice’s vote if he wants a narrower rule to survive. Whether the Supreme Court will uphold the new executive order is the question his latest move puts directly back in front of the Court.
