SCOTUS hears Trump’s birthright case. NC critics say it targets the right to parent.

The justices have heard arguments. What’s at stake now is whether citizenship can depend on a parent’s paperwork.

For more than a century, the United States has operated on a simple principle: If you’re born here, you belong here. But in May, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could upend that promise, and reshape what it means to be an American.

At issue is an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January that redefines birthright citizenship—a guarantee created by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. In it, the administration aims to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents are in the country temporarily or without permanent documentation. A decision is expected later this month or July.

READ MORE: Trump takes on the US Constitution with day one executive orders

One of the five plaintiffs at the heart of this case is a woman in North Carolina using the pseudonym Trinidad. She is an asylum seeker from Venezuela, pregnant, and due in August.

Trinidad and her family came to the US on tourist visas in 2017, fleeing political persecution under the Maduro regime. Both her and her partner have work permits while they await an asylum interview that, after nearly eight years, has yet to be scheduled.

Trump’s attempt to narrow the definition of birthright citizenship has prompted fierce pushback from people starting families, civil rights groups, and immigration attorneys—including many in North Carolina. Critics said the executive order is part of a growing campaign to control who gets to have children, who gets to raise them, and who counts as part of the classic American family.

Real people, real stakes

Back in her home country, Trinidad, who has a degree in business administration, oversaw a human resources team. Today, she runs a home cleaning business in North Carolina. Her partner, once an environmental engineer in Venezuela, now restores stone and tile as part of home remodels.

Together, they live quietly with their 12-year-old daughter, work legally, and pay taxes. But they fear their second daughter, born on American soil, could arrive without a country that claims her.

Because there is no functioning Venezuelan consulate in the US, Trinidad said it would be impossible to secure Venezuelan citizenship for their child. But under this order, their baby could also be denied US citizenship, simply because the couple’s legal status is not yet permanent.

READ MORE: A US Supreme Court case could end birthright citizenship. This NC mom is fighting back.

Abigail Seymour, founder and lead attorney of Greensboro-based Camino Law, a firm for immigration families, said that Trump’s order doesn’t just threaten citizenship—it risks government overreach into deeply personal decisions about parenting, pregnancy, and bodily autonomy.

During the oral arguments heard at the conservative-majority Supreme Court last month, conversations echoed dynamics seen in other recent court battles—most notably, Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion. Reproductive rights advocates have long warned that attacks on bodily autonomy often extend beyond abortion access to include constraints on the right to parent with safety and dignity.

“Any time we have policies that are focused on harming families and not providing access to safe services, or what they may need to be able to live and thrive in this country, is absolutely an attack on their reproductive lives,” said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, a national reproductive justice collective based in the South. “And even if this particular slice is very much focused on the birthright citizenship piece, it is definitely a matter of reproductive justice.”

Reproductive justice, as SisterSong defines it, is the human right to have children, not have children, and raise families in safe and sustainable communities. Forcing someone to carry a pregnancy under the shadow of statelessness—and with no guarantee their child will be recognized as a citizen—is a direct assault on that right, Simpson said.

“We are putting people in a position where people are scared to give birth,” Simpson said. “They’re scared to even think about creating a family in this country anymore, for a myriad of reasons, not just this piece. And now we have yet another barrier; another thing that is causing so much fear for folks who have been in this country.”

Inside the Courtroom

During oral arguments, justices discussed whether or not a court has the right to block the federal government from enforcing a policy or law universally. The nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge back in February blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order from going into effect, though the administration has argued that the injunction should apply only to the named plaintiffs that filed a lawsuit against the order: Trinidad, four other pregnant women, and their organizational affiliations, including members of CASA Inc., a national community-based immigrant advocacy organization, and Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, a national nonprofit that provides legal aid and support to asylum-seeking families.

In a March 31 brief, the Trump administration also questioned whether asylum seekers having children have “established domicile,” a key term under the order’s logic, claiming that since asylum seekers may not plan on staying in the country permanently, their US-born children shouldn’t either.

But plaintiffs disputed, stating that only a nationwide injunction can provide meaningful relief, particularly because organizations like ASAP serve members in all 50 states and the executive order threatens a uniform federal understanding of citizenship.

Justices also questioned whether the executive branch had overstepped its authority by attempting to narrow a constitutional guarantee. Justice Sonia Sotomayor voiced urgent concerns about the real-world fallout if the executive order were allowed to proceed, especially for US-born children at risk of statelessness.

“We can act quickly if we are worried about those thousands of children who are going to be born without citizenship papers that could render them stateless in some places,” she said, referring to countries that do not automatically recognize children born abroad to their nationals.

She pressed further, asking, “If we’re afraid that this is or even have a thought that this is unlawful executive action that it is Congress who decides citizenship, not the executive…why should we permit those countless others to be subject to what we think is an unlawful executive action, as unlawful as an executive taking the guns away from every citizen?”

No clear majority emerged during the arguments. While Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Sotomayor in questioning whether the executive branch could unilaterally reshape constitutional protections, conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas expressed concern about judicial overreach when lower courts issue universal injunctions.

If the Court ultimately decides to narrow the injunction to apply only to the plaintiffs in the case, Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order could ultimately go into effect immediately, impacting tens of thousands of babies born each year in the US.

Not the first

While this case may be the most direct legal challenge to birthright citizenship in over a century, it is not the first time the idea has come under fire. In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the US Supreme Court infamously ruled that no Black person, enslaved or free, could claim US citizenship.

That ruling was overturned by the 14th Amendment after the Civil War.

Then in 1898, the Court reaffirmed that promise in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark, holding that a US-born child of Chinese immigrants was a citizen, regardless of his parent’s legal status. That ruling has remained the cornerstone of birthright citizenship ever since.

Shane Ellison, a clinical professor at Duke University’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, said that the stakes in the case are far from theoretical.

“Citizenship has been described as the right to have rights,” Ellison said. “While that may be somewhat hyperbolic, it illustrates how fundamental citizenship is.”

Additionally, Ellison said that families like Trindad’s aren’t trying to bypass the system; they are just participating in it at every stage they can.

Seymour, the North Carolina attorney, hopes the public sees what’s at stake and pays attention—not just for Trinidad, but for the country.

“For most of us, we feel like the Supreme Court is this high and mighty place, and it doesn’t affect our lives,” she said. “But everything about it does affect our lives, whether or not we are Trinidad, or we’re just our daily selves. The systems that we have in our state courts, the civil procedures, the processes—they’re the same.”