US Supreme Court rules birthright citizenship cannot be redefined—and territory advocates say it applies to them too

The United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that President Donald Trump’s executive order redefining the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude children born to parents who are temporary or unauthorized immigrants is unconstitutional—a decision that territory advocates and elected officials say has direct implications for the 3.6 million Americans living in US territories who have long been denied equal citizenship rights.

Writing for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts described citizenship as “the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community,” and wrote that the Fourteenth Amendment made clear that a child born on American soil and subject to American law is a United States citizen. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the executive order must be struck down as inconsistent with federal statute.

While the decision did not directly address birthright citizenship in US territories, the Court’s ruling that neither the president nor Congress has the power to unilaterally redefine the Citizenship Clause has drawn immediate responses from territory officials and legal advocates who argue the same principle must apply to people born in Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.

Earlier this year, Right to Democracy, which works to advance democracy, equity, and self-determination in US territories, filed an amicus brief in the case—Trump v. Barbara—on behalf of 21 current and former elected officials and judges from all five US territories, urging the Court not to repeat the same mistakes it has made in its treatment of territory residents.

“The Court definitively ruled that the political branches of the federal government have no power to redefine the Citizenship Clause,” said Neil Weare, co-director of Right to Democracy, who served as counsel of record for the amicus brief. “This is significant for people born in US territories, because the federal government continues to argue—contrary to the text and history of the Citizenship Clause—that it can turn citizenship on and off in US territories.”

Weare also noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a concurring opinion joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, called out the Insular Cases—a series of early 20th-century Supreme Court decisions rooted in racial and colonial prejudice that continue to govern the legal status of US territories—as an example of when the Court has denied Americans the promise of equal citizenship.

Dr. Adi Martínez-Román, co-director of Right to Democracy, said the ruling reemphasizes constitutional limits on federal power over citizenship.

“The language of the Court is clear—that neither the President nor Congress has the power to unilaterally deny US citizenship to someone born under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the United States,” Martínez-Román said. “Understanding what basic rights are recognized to people born under US sovereignty is critical to the conversation of self-determination.”

Several current and former elected officials who joined the amicus brief responded to the decision, each connecting the ruling to the specific circumstances of their home territory.

Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D) of the US Virgin Islands pointed to the 1917 Treaty of Transfer, which she said expressly recognized Virgin Islanders as US citizens, arguing the federal government’s continued claim that territorial citizenship is a legislative privilege rather than a constitutional right is contrary to both the Constitution and that treaty. Soraya Diase-Coffelt, a native of the US Virgin Islands who served as a judge in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands from 1994 to 2000, echoed that position, saying the ruling’s logic should extend beyond the executive order to people born in all US territories.

Mary Camacho Torres (R), who served in the Guam Legislature from 2015 to 2023, said no elected official or legislative body should have a veto over whether someone born on US soil is a US citizen, regardless of their territory’s future political status.

From Puerto Rico, former senators Eduardo Bhatia (PDP, D), Ana Irma Rivera Lassén (CVM, D), and Zoe Laboy (NPP, D) each argued that the Court’s principle—that a child born on American soil and subject to American law is a citizen—cannot logically be confined to the states. Rivera Lassén went further, connecting the ruling to Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the United States and calling for a process of self-determination and decolonization. Bhatia said the principle equally protects those born in US territories, including Puerto Rico, while Laboy emphasized that birthright citizenship must be recognized for territory residents who have historically been denied equal treatment.

The stakes are most immediate for American Samoans. Unlike every other US territory, where residents are recognized as US citizens at birth, American Samoa is the only territory whose residents are labeled “nationals, but not citizens” of the United States—a distinction rooted in the same unresolved constitutional questions at the heart of the amicus brief. Andra Samoa, who served in American Samoa’s Fono from 2019 to 2022, pointed to ongoing criminal prosecutions of American Samoans in Alaska as evidence of the human consequences of that classification, noting that the ruling sends a clear message that federal officials cannot redefine whether someone has a right to citizenship.

Right to Democracy represents Michael Pese and his wife Tupe Smith, who—along with several family members—face felony perjury and voter misconduct charges carrying up to 5 to 10 years in prison in Alaska, because the federal government does not recognize them as US citizens despite their birth on US soil in American Samoa. The day after the oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, Pese filed a motion to dismiss his indictment, arguing that the Citizenship Clause already makes him a US citizen. Charles Ala’ilima, an American Samoan attorney serving on the board of Right to Democracy and as co-counsel in Alaska v. Pese and Alaska v. Smith, said the federal government has no power to impose non-citizen national status on people born in any territory, because citizenship is a fundamental individual right conferred at birth—and that today’s decision strengthens his clients’ argument that all charges must be dropped.