Vice President JD Vance sharply criticized the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday after the justices voted 6-3 to block President Donald Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship, calling the decision a major setback for the administration while promising that the White House would pursue alternative avenues to reshape U.S. immigration policy.
The ruling reaffirmed the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to nearly every child born on American soil, rejecting the administration's effort to deny automatic citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. While the decision halted one of Trump's signature immigration initiatives, Vance argued that the administration's broader campaign to tighten immigration enforcement would continue through executive actions and legislation.
Trump signed the executive order during the opening days of his second term, asserting that the Constitution's Citizenship Clause did not extend automatic citizenship to children whose parents lacked permanent legal status. The administration maintained that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States had been interpreted too broadly for more than a century.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts rejected that interpretation, emphasizing the historical understanding of the 14th Amendment adopted after the Civil War. Roberts wrote, "The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to 'every free-born person in this land.' We keep that promise today." The opinion reaffirmed what the Court described as the settled constitutional understanding governing birthright citizenship, while recognizing only limited historical exceptions.
Although the Court divided over portions of the legal reasoning, six justices ultimately voted to block Trump's executive order. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, supporting the administration's narrower reading of the Citizenship Clause. Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed with the majority's constitutional analysis but concluded that existing federal statutes governing citizenship independently prevented Trump's order from taking effect.
Appearing on television shortly after the decision, Vance criticized the ruling in unusually forceful terms. "This was a very disappointing ruling from the Supreme Court," he said. "We respect it, but we also think that it was a major, major mistake." He later described the decision as "just a preposterous ruling" and subsequently referred to it as "an atrocious Supreme Court ruling."
Much of Vance's criticism centered on what he described as the potential consequences for immigration. He argued that the decision could encourage foreign nationals to travel to the United States specifically to give birth, claiming the ruling "might invite people to come here quite literally on a vacation, give birth, and then all of a sudden the child and their family have the full benefits of American citizenship."
Current U.S. immigration law, however, does not automatically grant legal immigration status to parents simply because a child is born in the United States. While U.S.-born children generally receive citizenship at birth under existing law, parents remain subject to immigration enforcement, and citizen children cannot sponsor their parents for permanent legal status until reaching adulthood under federal immigration statutes.
Despite acknowledging the Court's authority, Vance argued that the administration would intensify enforcement efforts rather than retreat. "What I take from [the ruling] is, yes, we've got to fix the immigration system even more, we have to be even more aware of who's coming into our country to make sure that they're not benefiting from this atrocious Supreme Court ruling," he said.
Vance also sought to reassure conservative supporters by arguing that the legal battle was not over. Speaking with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, he contended that the decision was effectively closer than the headline vote suggested because Justice Kavanaugh disagreed with much of the majority's constitutional reasoning before relying on federal statutes to reach the same outcome. "The fact that this case was a 5-to-4 decision effectively means that the concept of birthright citizenship, which is an absurdity to the 14th Amendment, that concept is hanging by a thread," Vance said.
