The 14th Amendment was adopted to grant citizenship to the children of slaves freed after the Civil War, Trump wrote on Truth Social.
President Donald Trump said on March 30 that the country’s current birthright citizenship policy was created to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children, not to those children born to temporary visitors.
Trump’s comments came as the Supreme Court prepares to hear Trump v. Barbara on April 1. The case is about whether his Executive Order 14160, which excludes the children of illegal immigrants and legal temporary visitors from automatically gaining U.S. citizenship at birth, is constitutional. The order has been blocked in the lower courts.
“Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!” he wrote.
In Trump v. Barbara, the federal government is arguing that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was adopted in 1868 to bestow citizenship on former slaves and their children, not on the children of illegal immigrants and legal temporary visitors.
Since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, the federal government has recognized that almost all persons born in the United States are U.S. citizens at birth.
The citizenship clause states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Trump’s mention of Chinese people appears to refer to evidence that Chinese nationals are using surrogacy and birth tourism to secure U.S. citizenship for their children, a practice that may pose longterm U.S. national security risks.
“The World is getting rich selling citizenship to our Country, while at the same time laughing at how STUPID our U.S. Court System has become (TARIFFS!),” the president wrote in the social media post.
“Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!” Trump added.
On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court invalidated many of Trump’s tariffs, saying they violated an emergency powers law he invoked last year.
The tariffs were enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The court ruled 6–3 that the federal statute did not clearly authorize tariffs.
Trump had said the tariffs were needed to stem the flow of illegal drugs and to combat “large and persistent” trade deficits with foreign nations.
Tariffs enacted under other laws were not affected by the ruling.
