Supreme Court deals repeated blows to Trump agenda ahead of midterms

The US Supreme Court has dealt repeated blows to President Donald Trump's core policy agenda — most recently by upholding birthright citizenship — deepening his political burden ahead of the November midterm elections.

The court ruled Tuesday that Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship — the automatic granting of citizenship to children born on US soil — is unconstitutional.

A majority of the justices held that limiting birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment, which in effect guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on American territory. The majority included conservative Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, both appointed by Trump during his first term. Kavanaugh, however, stopped short of joining the constitutional ruling, finding instead that the executive order violated federal law. Roberts and Barrett went further, declaring it unconstitutional outright.

Trump signed the executive order on his first day in office, Jan. 20 last year, signaling an aggressive immigration policy. Democratic governors and others filed legal challenges, and lower courts struck it down at both the district and appellate levels. Trump then attended the Supreme Court's oral arguments in person in April — the first sitting president to do so — underscoring his determination to see the birthright citizenship ban upheld.

Yet even a court where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority voted to invalidate the order. The ruling is widely seen as a significant brake on the centerpiece of Trump's immigration agenda. Trump has signaled he will pursue a legislative ban on birthright citizenship through Congress, but with the Supreme Court having found the policy unconstitutional, clearing that hurdle is expected to be extremely difficult.

After the ruling, Trump posted on Truth Social that it was "a great misfortune for our country" and urged Congress to "begin work on Wednesday to end costly and unfair birthright citizenship." He then congratulated "President Xi Jinping and the great nation of China on their tremendous victory on the birthright citizenship issue," an indirect swipe at the court's decision. Trump has long criticized wealthy Chinese nationals for traveling to the United States to give birth and obtain citizenship for their children.

Earlier, the Supreme Court ruled in February that the Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were also unlawful. Just as birthright citizenship has come to symbolize Trump's immigration policy, reciprocal tariffs are the cornerstone of his economic agenda — making the court's successive rulings against both a pattern of blocking his most consequential priorities.

On Monday, the court also ruled that Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook could remain in her position until a final decision is reached in her wrongful-dismissal lawsuit, and separately held that mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day could be counted as valid votes — both decisions going against Trump. The court also rejected Trump's request to reconsider a ruling against him in a sexual abuse case he had lost.

As the Supreme Court continues to block Trump's policies in rapid succession, frustration with the court is growing among his core base — the MAGA movement, which champions an America-first agenda. Justice Barrett in particular has drawn intense criticism from MAGA supporters after voting against Trump's positions in major cases involving reciprocal tariffs, birthright citizenship and mail-in ballots.