On August 6, 2026, Trump signed two new executive orders (EO) written narrowly to attempt to fit inside the exceptions acknowledged in Trump v. Barbara, the June 30, 2026, Supreme Court decision holding that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present in the country are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
In the first EO “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” Trump directs federal agencies not to recognize birthright citizenship for a few narrowly defined categories. Leaning on the “historically recognized exceptions” language from Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion, the EO excludes:
· Children with a parent who is an “alien enemy”
· Children of foreign government employees, such as embassy or consulate staff who are on diplomatic assignment (children born to accredited diplomats in the U.S. are already excluded under long-standing diplomatic-immunity doctrine)
· Children of a parent who engaged in a commercial transaction to purchase or access birthright citizenship for that child, including a commercial transaction to ensure the child’s mother is present in the U.S. to give birth (birth tourism) or a commercial transaction with a surrogate
· Children born in a territory or territorial waters where citizenship is not conferred by federal statute (the current reality in American Samoa)
The second EO “Ending Birth Tourism” delegates authority to the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security and directs them to halt the practice of birth tourism utilizing visa screening, entry denial, and visa revocation to stop pregnant travelers from coming to the U.S. to give birth, rather than trying to strip citizenship from children after the fact.
The White House is framing both orders as consistent with Barbara, pointing to language in Roberts’s opinion about citizenship applying to those “for whom no extraterritorial fiction applie[s]” as a hook for the “alien enemy” and diplomatic-staff carve-outs, which are much narrower categories than any “undocumented or temporary-status parent”.
On August 11, the ACLU and other advocacy groups asked a federal court to block enforcement of the orders, arguing they constitute an illegal and unconstitutional workaround, setting up another round of litigation over how far even these narrower categories can stretch.
