'Meant for the babies of slaves': Trump praises Supreme Court's birthright ruling

Churchill Ndonwie, Miami Herald on Jun 27, 2025

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President Donald Trump celebrated the Supreme Court decision Friday that will allow his administration to end automatic birthright citizenship in some cases, calling the ruling a “huge one.”

The president said birthright citizenship, enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment shortly after the end of the Civil War, was meant for the “babies of slaves.”

“It wasn’t meant for people trying to scam the system,” Trump said. “Hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn’t meant for that reason.”

Appearing in the White Press press room with the president, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi echoed the president’s remarks in thanking the justices for their decision.

“No longer will we have rogue judges striking down President Trump’s policies across the entire nation,” she said. “These injunctions have allowed for district court judges to be emperors.”

In its 6-3 ruling, the high court did not rule on the underlying constitutionality of the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The ruling keeps federal judges’ actions on the case limited to the areas under their jurisdiction, rather than apply nationwide. That means that the administration can move to end birthright citizenship to states where the order has not yet been challenged or stopped by federal judges.

Bondi said the merits of the president’s order will be decided in the Supreme Court’s next session, which begins in October. She added that Fridays’ decision does have indirect implications, because federal court decisions in birthright citizenship cases will only affect the part of the country where the case was filed.

“If there’s a birthright citizenship case in Oregon, it will only affect the plaintiff in Oregon, not the entire country,” Bondi said.

The Attorney General said the administration is confident in the Supreme Court the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment when it takes up the case on the merits in the next term.

The determination of who would be tasked with vetting the citizenship of newborns in the meantime remains unclear. Bondi said the administration will provide more clarity after the Supreme Court rules on the merits of the case. “The violent criminals in our country are the priority now,” she said.

The Supreme Court decisions included a 30-day grace period before going into effect. The Trump administration said it will follow the law respecting the grace period. “We’re gonna do what’s right in the bounds of the law,” Bondi said.

Trump said previous administrations had been wrongly looking at birthright citizenship and claimed drug cartels haed been using it as a means to “get very bad people” into the country.

Trump reiterated multiple times that birthright citizenship only had to deal with slave-era citizenship, concluding at the end of the press conference: .

“This was a tremendous win today.”