Newborn Pakistani Babies Will Automatically Get US Citizenship

Pakistani parents living in the United States of America will continue to see their newborn children receive automatic US citizenship.

The development came after the US Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship and rejected an executive order by President Donald Trump that aimed to restrict the long-standing constitutional right.

The ruling does not apply to Pakistanis alone. It covers all children born in the United States under the legal protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In its majority opinion, the court said children born in the US to parents who are either unlawfully present or temporarily in the country remain “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are therefore citizens at birth under the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority decision, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The decision preserves one of the oldest and most consequential principles in American citizenship law. The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the country and of the state where they reside.

Another conservative justice, Brett Kavanaugh, agreed that Trump’s order could not stand, though he said the problem lay in conflict with a federal law passed in 1940 rather than the Constitution itself. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

Had Trump’s executive order survived, tens of thousands of babies born in the US every month to undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors could have been denied American citizenship.

Trump responded angrily to the ruling and said Congress should now move to end birthright citizenship through legislation. He argued that no constitutional amendment would be needed and called on lawmakers to begin work immediately.

The order had been signed by Trump on January 20, 2025, his first day back in the White House. It sought to deny citizenship documents to babies born in the US if their parents were in the country illegally or were undocumented workers. But multiple lower courts blocked the order, ruling that it violated the Constitution.

Civil rights lawyers who challenged the policy welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, describing it as a victory for a foundational American right that has been relied upon for more than 150 years.