NPR News: 06-30-2026 12PM EDT

Lakshmi Singh· Host0:01

Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship. In a six to three ruling announced today, the majority of justices rejected President Trump's executive order aimed at ending the longstanding principle that nearly all children born in the U.S., including those born to immigrants in the U.S. illegally or temporarily, are automatic citizens. NPR's Carrie Johnson describes how the majority of the court could have arrived at this major ruling.

Speaker 20:29

There were ways for the court majority to get here. One was just to say, "Look at the words of the 14th Amendment," w- which are quite clear that, uh, uh, subject to the jurisdiction thereof means you're here, you're born here on American soil, you're a citizen. Another way to get to this result would be to look to a couple of statutes that Congress passed much after the adoption of the 14th Amendment in 1940, in 1952. These were immigration laws that ba- basically codified the same language that was in the 14th Amendment. And the justices, uh, could have found, um, could have, could have used those more recent laws as a basis to come to some consensus.

Lakshmi Singh· Host1:09

NPR's Carrie Johnson. The court ruled the Constitution guarantees automatic birthright citizenship. The court upheld state laws that ban transgender athletes from taking part in girls' and women's sports at public schools. It also loosened campaign finance restrictions. On social media, President Trump hails big GOP wins in these cases. On the birthright issue, he forwarded