How a 126-Year-Old Court Ruling Will Stonewall Trump's Bid to End Birthright Citizenship, According to Experts

President-elect Donald Trump's promise to end the practice of birthright citizenship in the US with his return to office will likely be thwarted by a Supreme Court precedent that is over a century old, according to experts.

Trump has long promised to end birthright citizenship. In fact, he first discussed this goal when campaigning for his first presidential term in 2016.

"On day one of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal immigrants will not receive automatic US citizenship," Trump stated in a May 2023 "Agenda 47" campaign video.

"It's things like this that bring millions of people to our country and they enter our country illegally," he continued. "My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming and encourage many of the aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries. They must go back."

However, legal scholars are drawing attention to the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in which the court ruled that any child born on American soil is a U.S. citizen even if their parents are not U.S. citizens. The ruling followed the birth of Horace Wong, who was 21 years old at the time of the case. Wong had been born to "subjects of the Emperor of China" in San Francisco and was determined to be a U.S. citizen.

"[T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens," wrote Justice Gray in the court's majority opinion filing.

"We have a legal system which is based on precedent," explained Leti Volpp, law professor at UC Berkeley, in an interview with the San Francisco-based radio station KQED. "In the case of Wong Kim Ark ... there has been no chipping away at precedent through other decisions," Volpp continued.