The U.S. Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments over the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship, according to multiple reports. Trump signed the order on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term. He is the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court, accompanied by Cabinet members including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Trump left the court after 90 minutes, and his arrival was met by furious protests.
Every lower court to have considered the birthright citizenship order has found it illegal and prevented it from taking effect, according to major media reports. During the hearing, all three Trump-appointed justices—Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsuch—seemed to dismiss and scoff at Solicitor General John Sauer’s responses, according to multiple sources. A definitive ruling by the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship is expected by early summer.
Public opinion polls show that most people believe the Supreme Court should strike down Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, according to a Marquette Law School poll. Among those who approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, 41 percent say the executive order should be found unconstitutional, while 59 percent believe the high court should uphold it. Among Republicans, 46 percent say Trump’s order is unconstitutional, according to the same poll. A Pew Research Center poll found that 75 percent of Republicans think the children of parents who immigrated illegally should not have citizenship. A YouGov poll found that 68 percent of Republicans think birthright citizenship should be limited to children of parents with citizenship or permanent legal status.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears ready to let Trump’s administration resume blocking asylum seekers from U.S. border crossings if ports of entry are overwhelmed, according to multiple reports. Under Trump’s first administration, immigration officials could stop people seeking asylum from crossing while indefinitely declining to process their claims, stranding thousands. The policy called 'metering' was blocked by Joe Biden’s administration.
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to clear the way for moves that could expose thousands more people to deportation by ending temporary protected status, according to major media reports. A lower court judge found 'hostility to nonwhite immigrants' likely played a role in the decision to end protections for Haitians. The Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration on the issue before, allowing termination of protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program was established in 1990 through Title III of the Immigration Act, according to research. The act empowered the attorney general to designate countries as unsafe to return to because of war, natural disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. After the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002, the authority to designate countries transferred to the DHS secretary. When the DHS secretary designates a country for TPS, nationals of that country living in the U.S. can apply for temporary protection from deportation and temporary authorization to work. A country’s TPS designation lasts six, 12, or 18 months, at which point the DHS secretary reconsiders conditions and potentially extends the designation indefinitely. A TPS holder’s protection from deportation and work authorization ends when their home country’s TPS designation ends.
As of March 2025, there were nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries living and working in the U.S. with TPS protections, according to Congress. Over the past year, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem worked to scale back the TPS program. Noem announced her intent to terminate TPS status for 13 countries, including Haiti, Syria, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. Noem and other DHS leaders explained their belief that conditions on the ground in these countries no longer meet the threshold for TPS and emphasized that TPS designations are meant to be temporary.
A group of more than 175 former judges argued that emergency-docket rulings are not settled law, according to major media reports. The Supreme Court will hear argument in late April on the Trump administration’s effort to remove protected immigration status from Syrian and Haitian nationals, according to research. The Supreme Court's eventual ruling is expected to bring clarity to several other lawsuits filed in response to the administration’s changes to the Temporary Protected Status program.