How the Supreme Court Shaped Trump’s Immigration Agenda This Term

President Donald Trump’s administration turned repeatedly to the Supreme Court to advance its sweeping immigration crackdown — and in most cases, it succeeded. The conservative-majority court allowed the administration to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of migrants, gave immigration officers broader authority over green card holders, and cleared the way for renewed limits on asylum seekers. The one significant exception: birthright citizenship.

Birthright Citizenship Upheld in Major Blow to Trump

The most consequential defeat for the Trump administration came when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 30 to uphold birthright citizenship, striking down an executive order Trump signed on his first day in office that would have denied automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are undocumented or in the country temporarily.

A bare majority of five justices held that the long-established reading of the 14th Amendment — that anyone born on US soil is a citizen, with narrow exceptions — remains constitutionally sound. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the amendment’s language, history, and Supreme Court precedent make clear that children born to undocumented or temporarily present parents “are citizens at birth.”

Trump called the ruling “too bad for our Country.” The decision drew praise from immigrant rights advocates but prompted calls from Republican allies to pursue alternative means of restricting birthright citizenship, including through changes to visa policy. Mark Krikorian, head of the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, said the ruling makes large-scale deportations “all the more urgent” and suggested the State Department consider adding pregnancy questions to visa applications.

Temporary Protections for Haitians and Syrians Terminated

In a separate 6-3 decision issued June 25, the court allowed the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for migrants who fled violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, leaving roughly 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians vulnerable to deportation and unable to work legally in the United States.

Since returning to office in January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security has moved to revoke TPS for people from 13 countries — some of whom had held those protections for over a decade. The court’s conservative majority ruled that federal law does not permit courts to scrutinize the process by which immigration authorities revoke these protections.

The ruling’s impact extends far beyond Haitians and Syrians. David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said approximately one million additional TPS holders are now without meaningful legal recourse to challenge the administration’s moves. “It just fully closed the door to any challenges,” Bier said.

Asylum Limits Cleared for Potential Revival

The court also cleared the way for the Trump administration to potentially reinstate asylum-metering — a policy that restricts how many migrants can apply for asylum each day at the southern border with Mexico. Originally launched under President Barack Obama and expanded during Trump’s first term, the policy is not currently in effect but the ruling removes a key legal obstacle to its revival.

Critics of asylum-metering have documented the humanitarian consequences of the policy during its previous implementation, when thousands of people waited for months in makeshift camps in Mexico. The administration has defended it as a necessary tool for managing border crossings, arguing that migrants turned away could return later to apply.

Green Card Holders Face Greater Scrutiny at the Border

In another 6-3 ruling, the court sided with the Trump administration on a case involving lawful permanent residents returning to the United States from international travel, giving immigration officers wider discretion in how they handle green card holders at ports of entry.

The case stemmed from a 2012 incident in which Customs and Border Protection officers placed Muk Choi Lau, a lawful permanent resident, on immigration parole upon his return from a trip to China and confiscated his green card. He had been accused of — but not convicted of — counterfeiting crimes. His subsequent guilty plea to selling counterfeit goods in New Jersey gave federal authorities an easier legal path to remove him from the country.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting, warned that the ruling hands the government a “massive blank check” in dealing with the millions of green card holders who travel internationally. The American Immigration Council said the full scope of the decision remains unclear but expects the government to argue it applies broadly to future cases involving lawful permanent residents.

A Court That Shaped the Scope of a Crackdown

Taken together, the Supreme Court’s immigration rulings this term functioned as a significant force multiplier for the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, removing legal barriers that lower courts had repeatedly upheld. At the same time, the birthright citizenship decision drew a constitutional line the administration could not cross — one that could only be moved through a constitutional amendment, not legislation or executive action.