The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked one of President Donald Trump’s most sweeping attempts to redefine who qualifies as an American citizen. Ruling 6-3, the justices struck down his executive order and held that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil. 

But Trump’s broader effort — to restrict immigration, close legal pathways and accelerate deportations — extends far beyond the 14th Amendment.

Since his first run for president, Trump has sought to end birthright citizenship, calling it the “biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, has described birthright citizenship as a threat to American identity. 

“Birthright citizenship means the children of illegal aliens can vote to tax your children and seize their inheritance,” Miller posted recently on social media. The children he was describing are, under the ruling reaffirmed Tuesday, U.S. citizens. 

Miller has extended that argument to legal immigrants and their children. “Not only is the first generation unsuccessful,” he said, citing Somali immigrants as an example, “you see persistent issues in every subsequent generation.” He has described such immigrants as showing “consistent failures to assimilate” — a characterization that is at odds with research on immigrant economic mobility across generations. 

Responding to the ruling Tuesday, White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration would be “doubling down on birthright tourism investigations” and “those organizations that do that,” but did not name any organizations. Pressed by MS NOW for numbers on how many cases of alleged birth tourism are occurring in the U.S., Homan said, “I don’t have any numbers,” then said it was in the thousands, according to data from when he was Immigration and Customs Enforcement director eight years ago.

Even as the court blocked the bid to end birthright citizenship — an idea considered fringe just a decade ago — Trump, Miller and Homan have expanded the administration’s immigration crackdown well beyond people in the country illegally, and beyond those with criminal records.

Here is how they have done it.

Stripping legal status, ignoring protections

The administration has moved to revoke legal or protected status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security has terminated or moved to terminate Temporary Protected Status for nationals of 13 countries, affecting hundreds of thousands of people living in the United States legally. A recent Supreme Court order allowing the administration to end protections for Haitians and Syrians could clear the way to revoke TPS for more nationalities, with El Salvador and Ukraine potentially next. 

Meanwhile, the State Department has revoked roughly 100,000 student visas. The administration has also detained, and in some cases deported, so-called Dreamers who had maintained valid status. In other cases, recipients and their lawyers say, it has slowed renewals in ways that have cost people their work permits and left them vulnerable to deportation.

Closing pathways, narrowing access

On his first day back in office, Trump shut off asylum access at ports of entry along the southern border and canceled thousands of appointments.

That same day, he indefinitely suspended refugee resettlement, halting admissions for Afghans who had aided U.S. forces against the Taliban and for others fleeing persecution and conflict, predominantly from African and Muslim-majority countries. The administration has prioritized one group, white South Africans, saying it is favoring people who can “more quickly assimilate.” It is also re-vetting all refugees admitted under President Joe Biden, who had already undergone the lengthy screening required for admission.

Halting processing, targeting citizens for denaturalization 

Last year, the administration halted immigration processing — including work-permit, green-card and citizenship applications — for people from the 39 countries on Trump’s travel ban list. This month, a federal judge struck down the policy, saying it left immigrants in “indeterminate legal limbo.” The administration said it would resume processing but is appealing the decision.

Naturalized citizens are also a focus. At Miller’s direction, Homeland Security Investigations agents have been assigned to investigate and prosecute naturalized citizens suspected of having voted before they became citizens. Earlier this month, in what the Justice Department called its largest denaturalization effort to date, prosecutors moved to strip citizenship from 17 immigrants accused of fraud and other crimes, and said they planned to expand the effort.

Reshaping immigration courts

Over the past year, the administration has overhauled the immigration courts, firing judges and replacing them with appointees seen as more likely to side with the government — hires that critics have labeled “deportation judges.” The administration has sought judges who will follow directives to dismiss cases and more quickly deport immigrants with pending claims. 

“We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years,” Trump said last year.

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