Washington — On Thursday, August 7th, 2026, President Trump signed two executive orders in a renewed effort to restrict birthright citizenship in the United States after the Supreme Court invalidated his earlier executive order on the matter.

One executive order targets individuals involved in commercial "birth tourism," seeking to deny them access to the country. The other broadens the categories of people deemed ineligible for birthright citizenship, including children of foreign citizens who lobby on behalf of foreign governments.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller described birth tourism as a long-standing issue: "This has been something that people have talked about, not only for years, but for decades." He elaborated, "The idea that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor, saying they want to go to Disneyland or they want to go visit a monument or go to a national park, but the real reason they're here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, leave our country, and then have a U.S. citizen child."

One of the orders specifies that children born to mothers who entered the U.S. through a commercial transaction to give birth should not be granted citizenship documents.

The Supreme Court's decision on the prior executive order was described by President Trump as "a very unfortunate decision... it was close," and he stated, "But a very, very unfortunate decision. So we're making adjustments."

Chief Justice John Roberts, during related legal discussions, told U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer, "You do agree that that has no impact on the legal analysis before us." Sauer noted that birth tourism highlights negative effects of the current interpretation of the Citizenship Clause, stating, "We're in a new world now … where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who is a U.S. citizen."

Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, responded to the new orders, saying, "Any executive order that tries to rewrite birthright citizenship will meet the same fate as the last one."

The White House argues that the current system grants automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S., which they say provides access to welfare benefits, voting rights, and other privileges "that belong solely to Americans."

Sources