President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would ask the Supreme Court to rehear its decision rejecting his executive order that sought to sharply restrict birthright citizenship.
The Supreme Court on June 30 held that babies born in the United States are automatically citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause, and the majority ruling rejected Trump's executive order that sought to undo that benefit for the children of many immigrants.
In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that children born in the United States "to parents unlawfully or temporarily present" are "citizens at birth" under the 14th Amendment.
Trump signed the order on Jan. 20, 2025; it said that 30 days after its effective date babies born in the U.S. were not entitled to be issued citizenship documents if their parents had immigrated illegally or were undocumented workers.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump wrote, "Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, with 'Deliveries starting at $4000.'" "Likewise, similar signs going up all over our Country," he wrote. "Billions of Dollars will be illegally made by this SCAM, with Citizenship going to anyone willing to pay." Trump also wrote, "AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court's ruling is wrong."
He also wrote that he would ask for a rehearing "IMMEDIATELY" and said the justices "will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision." He called the ruling "too bad for our country" and urged Republicans in Congress to pass legislation constricting birthright citizenship.
A single hospital in Mission, Texas, five miles from the border with Reynosa, Mexico, advertised "delivery packages" in south Texas on two Spanish-language billboards in Mexico and on social media, and the prospect of U.S. citizenship was not mentioned in the text of the billboard advertisement or on an archived copy of the associated website that is now offline.
Mission Regional Medical Center, a public nonprofit hospital, said the billboards and the website havemybabyinTEXAS.com "are no longer in use due to any unintended misunderstanding," and that it "does not support or facilitate any unlawful activity" and intends to work cooperatively with local and state officials.
The report of the billboard was based on a photograph of one sign posted on social media in April by Mayra Flores, a Trump-backed former Republican congresswoman from Texas who was born in Mexico and is running to return to Congress. Flores said she took the photograph in Reynosa and expressed outrage that the price of the birthing services — $3,950 for a natural birth or $5,525 for a caesarean section — was far lower than the typical cost for American citizens, though she offered no proof that the prices were available only to foreign citizens.
The hospital deleted an Instagram post in Spanish that invited women "living abroad" to give birth in South Texas, saying "Look no further! Come and learn about the maternity packages Mission Regional Medical Center has for you and discover why thousands of families choose to have their baby with us every year." Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an investigation of the hospital Tuesday, accusing it of promoting "birth tourism."
Rights groups hailed the court's decision. ACLU lawyer Cecillia Wang, who argued the challenge at the Supreme Court, said the decision "reaffirms a fundamental American promise – if you are born here, you are a citizen." A Migration Policy Institute-Penn State study released in May of last year said an estimated 255,000 infants a year would be born in the U.S. without citizenship under the order, increasing the undocumented population by 2.7 million by 2045, and warned the order "would create a self-perpetuating, multigenerational underclass."
The Supreme Court has not agreed to rehear a ruling of a case already argued since 1965, and the last time it had reversed a decision it had made in an argued case was 1956, according to an article by Georgetown University Law Professor Steven Vladeck.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately, saying he believed Trump's order was in violation of federal law and suggesting that imposing limits by law rather than by executive order might be the appropriate path.
The court's rules allow a losing party to formally file a request for a rehearing within 25 days, and a majority of the nine-member court would have to approve granting a rehearing.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said Republicans are exploring a legislative push to address birthright citizenship, but there has been no public progress since the ruling.
Trump separately this week asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its June 29 denial of his petition that it hear his appeal of a New York federal court jury verdict finding him civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, and a Manhattan District Court judge on Wednesday ordered that $5 million that Trump had deposited with the court to secure the damages award in that case in 2023, plus nearly $800,000 in accrued interest, be distributed to Carroll despite the president's pending petition for reconsideration by the Supreme Court.