Highlights: Supreme Court rules on Trump’s birthright citizenship order, transgender athletes and campaign finance limits

Leaders of various groups that represented the plaintiffs in the birthright citizenship case weighed in on future threats to the guarantee for those born on U.S. soil to automatically receive citizenship.

"I’m expecting that this president will basically try and retaliate in some form or another. That’s what I’m expecting," said the CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Juan Proaño, during a press call with other groups. LULAC is the oldest and largest Hispanic and Latino civil rights organization in the U.S.

But Cody Wofsy, the deputy director of ACLU's immigrants' rights project, said the organization doesn't "anticipate that there will be a round two of this fight over birthright citizenship — the Supreme Court has rejected it and rejected it emphatically."

We Are CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization, held a rally on the steps of the Supreme Court this afternoon following the decision to uphold birthright citizenship.

“For generations, immigrant communities have defended the promise that every child born into this country is equal under the law, and today that promise continues,” said LaDon Love, Executive Director of SPACEs In Action.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., celebrated the opinion, calling it a decision “that the Supreme Court actually got right this morning.”

Senate Republicans who supported Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship now appear to be in agreement that they would need to pass a constitutional amendment to change it after today’s ruling by the Supreme Court.

“This decision confirms what I already suspected. If we want real, lasting change, it has to come through the amendment process,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., posted to X. 

Paul introduced a constitutional amendment earlier this year related to birthright citizenship, and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., announced just after the Supreme Court ruling that he was introducing one today as well. Schmitt’s amendment would change the scope of birthright citizenship to only the children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

The president's loss on birthright citizenship gives Trump room to step up deportations and toughen visa application rules, said the head of a group focused on restricting U.S. immigration policy.

"He lost, but this is almost a gift to the president," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Krikorian said the decision upholding the constitutionality of the 14th Amendment "is going to strengthen the president's argument for stepping up deportations to get people out before they have kids."

He said he believes it could also lend urgency to efforts to change visa processing to eventually bar pregnant women from being given tourist visas by adding a pregnancy question to visa applications.

The Democratic National Committee and the campaign fundraising arms for House and Senate Democrats denounced the Supreme Court's ruling today overturning long-standing campaign finance restrictions.

“Today’s ruling is a win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda and an invitation for corruption," DNC Chair Ken Martin, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y,., and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said in a joint statement.

They argued that Republicans have failed Americans "with a record that has ripped away health care and raised costs on families, and they know voters will hold them accountable in November — which is exactly why they are rewriting the rules in an effort to drown out the will of the voters by flooding elections with more money from their billionaire backers."

"Democrats are fighting back for the American people, and in November, voters will reject Republicans’ toxic agenda and efforts to rig the system and weaken our democracy by electing a Democratic House and Senate majority," they added.

Trump said that now that the Supreme Court ruled against his executive order ending birthright citizenship, his effort could be enacted through legislation.

"The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship," he added. "They will have my Complete and Total Support!"

Contrary to Trump's post, changing the law would require a constitutional amendment, which would take a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate (or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures). It's highly unlikely that such a proposal would pass.

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether states and local governments can ban semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15, which are popular among gun enthusiasts but have also been used in high-profile mass shootings.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority that generally backs gun rights, will hear challenges to laws in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, which covers the Chicago area. The two combined cases will be argued and decided in the court’s next term, which starts in October.

Read the full story here.

The Supreme Court birthright citizenship decision rejects the idea of having a subclass of people in the U.S. and speaks to the courage of those who fought for birthright citizenship to apply to everyone born in this country, said Angelica Salas, executive director of a Los Angeles-based immigrant rights group.

"No matter who is president of the U.S., our Constitution is above the president," said Salas, who oversees Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Salas was jubilant and tearful as she spoke to NBC News about the decision. She arrived in the U.S. undocumented as a child and her daughter was born in the U.S.

The Constitution is a piece of paper with ink on it," she said. "It only becomes real by the actions of people who stand by it and believe in its words, who believe in the equity of those words."

She said the decision makes the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that much more poignant because "we are a nation of millions of human beings who made the decision to leave their home country and take up the promise of America, contribute their talent, their heart, their ingenuity in order for this country to survive and advance."

The governor and attorney general of Idaho, both Republicans, released separate statements praising the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the state's ban on transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports. The law, one of two that were upheld today, says that sports “designated for females, women, or girls should not be open to students of the male sex.”

"This morning, common sense has won again!" Gov. Brad Little wrote on X. "The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Little v. Hecox affirms that our female athletes are protected from men competing in women’s sports. I am proud that Idaho has led the nation in supporting generations of women and men who fought hard to uphold Title IX protections and keep girls and women safe."

Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador issued a similar statement.

"Today’s decision is a victory for common sense, fairness, and the countless girls and women who dedicate themselves to athletics. Idaho led the nation by becoming the first state to protect women’s sports, and I’ve never wavered in defending that law. The Supreme Court has now confirmed that states can preserve fair competition and protect the opportunities that generations of women fought to secure. Every parent can rest assured that our law protects their daughters competing in Idaho."

Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., strongly condemned the Supreme Court’s decision to allow barring transgender athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams. 

Markey wrote on X: “Today, the far-right Supreme Court again cleared the way for Trump and MAGA Republicans to discriminate against the trans community. This decision tears trans athletes from their teams and the sports they love. We will keep fighting. Discrimination and hate will not win.”

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said in a statement posted on X that her "heart breaks for trans children and their families."

"Today’s appalling Supreme Court decision comes just one year after they upheld laws banning gender-affirming care and is just the most recent of a laundry list of attacks by conservatives against the queer community," she wrote. "A person’s gender should not bar their participation in the activities they love."

Trump posted on Truth Social to praise the Supreme Court’s ruling on campaign spending limits, calling it a big win for the GOP. 

“The Supreme Court just took restrictions off political spending!” Trump wrote. “A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!” 

The Supreme Court’s decision on birthright citizenship comes as Americans are split on the question of whether being born in the U.S. is central to American identity, with stark partisan divides on the issue, according to the recent NBC News poll.

New data from the survey poll finds a slim majority — 54% — say being born in the U.S. is important to being “truly American,” while 45% say it is not important. Overall, Americans rank several other traits as far more important to American identity.

Read the full story here.

In his opinion, Roberts wrote that the court was keeping the "promise" that had been made by the framers for of the 14th Amendment with its ruling on birthright citizenship.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights— to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to 'every free-born person in this land.' We keep that promise today,” Roberts wrote.

A senior White House official told NBC News that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is not retiring after NPR published a report that he was stepping down from the bench.

The report said that the court had announced Alito's retirement, a claim that a spokesperson for the court shot down.

Supreme Court public information officer Patricia McCabe also told NBC News, “NPR’s reporting regarding Justice Alito is inaccurate.”

“Their reporting that there was any kind of court statement is inaccurate,” she said. 

NPR posted an editor's note retracting the story less than an hour after it was published. "Earlier today we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. He has not announced his retirement and we have retracted the story," the statement said.

A small group of representatives from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) celebrated the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling.

"The Constitution was held today," one of the representatives outside the Supreme Court told the media.

LULAC is the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization.

In a statement, Roman Palomares, LULAC national president and chairman of the board, said, “This decision confirms a truth that generations of Americans have lived by: a child born on this soil is a citizen of this nation ... The Court has made clear that no president can override the Constitution by decree.”

Longfin Media / iStockphoto via Getty Images

The Supreme Court has quite an uneven record when it comes to transgender and LGBTQ rights. In 2020, Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a landmark ruling for LGBTQ rights, deciding in the Bostock v. Clayton County case that gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals are protected under federal law from employment discrimination. 

In 2025, the court ruled that conversion talk therapy is allowed, arguing that barring a therapist from expressing their views in talk therapy censors free speech. 

Gender affirming care for minors has also been under extreme scrutiny in recent years. The court ruled last year that states are allowed to ban gender affirming care for transgender minors.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

At his GOP leadership press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was in the middle of answering a question about birthright citizenship when the Supreme Court’s ruling on the case dropped. Reporters read the ruling to Johnson, who reacted by saying, “I’m very disappointed in that outcome, I think it subjects the country to serious challenges going forward, and we’ll have to deal with it as a Congress.”

He added that birthright citizenship has been “grossly abused in recent years.” 

“It’s become a tourism, birthing tourism, you know, a trend where people would just come and you just come onto the soil and have your child, and then they’re, they’re able to avail themselves of the welfare state and everything else,” he said. “It’s one of those things that was intended to serve a noble, important purpose, and has been thwarted and overused and abused.”

The heads of the Republican party committees that filed suit challenging the campaign finance restrictions praised the high court's ruling in a joint statement.

“This is a decisive First Amendment victory and a major win for the integrity of our political system. The Supreme Court made clear that the federal government has no authority to place arbitrary limits on how political parties support the candidates they nominate," said the statement by NRCC chair Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., and NRSC chair Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.

"By striking down these unconstitutional caps on coordinated spending, the Court has restored core political speech and ensured parties can compete on a level playing field. We are ready to fully support our candidates and put them in the strongest possible position to win in 2026 and beyond,” they said.

President Donald Trump.  Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images

Trump heralded the Supreme Court's ruling on transgender athletes, writing on Truth Social:

"BIG WIN: The United States Supreme Court just RULED AGAINST MEN PLAYING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS. Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP"

The Supreme Court's ruling is likely to lead to more influence of money in politics.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a "blistering dissent" in which she proposed a hypothetical scenario of a candidate named John Smith. The decision means that one person can donate $550,000 to boost one person's campaign because coordinated party activity is now allowed.

That sort of coordination gives, you know, the parties, I think, a lot more ability, and makes some of the party players much more powerful in Washington, sort of deciding a lot of these elections on the ground and figuring out where to spend their money, where they really need the most help.

It basically gives these parties more ability to fuel various campaigns across the country.

Justice Elena Kagan. Erin Schaff / Pool via Getty Images file

Justice Elena Kagan criticized her conservative colleagues' ruling on campaign finance restrictions, say the decision "rewrites the rules" and restores opportunities for "quid pro quo corruption."

"The majority invalidates Congress’s restriction of coordinated expenditures, thus enabling a party to serve as an alternative checking account for a campaign," she wrote in her dissent.

"As a result, a donor will be able to give a party as much as half a million dollars (as compared to the $7,000 he can give directly to the candidate) to cover the candidate’s bills. And the candidate can seek just such a donation. So the Court ushers back in the same opportunities for quid pro quo corruption that the contribution limits were meant to check."

People were cheering outside the Supreme Court after news came down that the justices ruled against the Trump administration in the birthright citizenship case.

The decision strikes down Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship.

Crowds outside Supreme Court cheer at birthright citizenship decision

02:25

In a major blow to Trump, the Supreme Court blocked his contentious attempt to limit citizenship at birth for people born on U.S. soil.

The court, divided 5-4, ruled that the executive order Trump issued Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, fell foul of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which has long been interpreted to bestow birthright citizenship on almost anyone born in the United States.

Read the full story here.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Gail Schulman / CBS via Getty Images

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent in West Virginia v. B.P.J. that the consequences of the majority's ruling are "serious," noting the impact on one of the plaintiffs, B.P.J.

"The ban is absolute, so B.P. J. cannot practice on girls’ teams, even if she would not take anyone’s spot in an eventual competition, even if everyone who tries out for the team makes it, and even if having the chance to participate could aid immensely in treating B.P.J.’s gender dysphoria," she wrote.

Sotomayor read from her dissent from the bench, which is typical in high-profile decisions.

The Supreme Court struck down longtime campaign finance rules challenged by Vice President JD Vance that place limits on how much a national political party committee can spend in coordination with individual candidates.

The court ruled on a 6-3 vote in a ruling authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh that the restrictions violate free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment, based on the theory that political spending is a form of speech.

The challenge was brought by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the campaigns of two candidates in the 2022 elections: Vance, who was then running as a Republican candidate for the Senate in Ohio, and then-Rep. Steve Chabot, a Republican congressman from the same state who lost his re-election bid.

Read the full story here.

Kavanaugh expressed sympathy for student athletes on both sides of the issue at the end of his opinion, and said neither side should be "ostracized or vilified."

"Most of the biological female and transgender student-athletes who are involved in transgender sports disputes around the country are teenagers or in their early twenties. Those student athletes want to play sports. Their desire to compete warrants respect," he wrote in the ruling. "No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified.   

Activists celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that cleared the way for states to impose restrictions on transgender student athletes on Tuesday. Cheney Orr / Reuters

Activists are gathered outside the Supreme Court this morning, celebrating the decisions siding with states in upholding bans on transgender participation in sports. They are cheering and holding signs that say, in all caps, "girls' sports for girls only" and "concerned women for America."

Groups supportive of state bans on transgender athletes gather outside the Supreme Court

01:09

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, applauded the Supreme Court's decision in the transgender sports case that originated in his state.

“Today’s decision will be remembered as one of the most important victories for women’s athletics since the enactment of Title IX itself," he said in a statement.

Morrisey said that he brought this case to the high court when he was attorney general of his state and said he "knew that protecting women’s sports was consistent with the Constitution and a matter of basic fairness."

“This began in West Virginia, but its impact reaches every corner of the country," he said. "Future generations of female athletes will benefit from the certainty, fairness, and opportunity this decision protects."

Morrisey said that the state "stood its ground" and "defended a simple principle most Americans instinctively understand: that women’s sports exist to provide women and girls a fair opportunity to compete and succeed."

Aarti Kohli, Asian Law Caucus executive director, hashed out the possible outcomes to today's highly anticipated Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship, with thoughts to what it took to get to this point.

"It's been a long road. We've been at this since Inauguration Day," Kohli told NBC News yesterday evening.

The best outcome for her side would be for the court to uphold the 14th Amendment as now interpreted, granting all people born in the U.S. citizenship, she said. “That’s the thing about this principle. It is so nice and clean and simple: You are born here, you are a citizen," she said.

Delivering another major blow to LGBTQ rights, the Supreme Court upheld state laws that ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

The court, divided 6-3, ruled against two transgender students, Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox, who had challenged restrictive laws in the states of West Virginia and Idaho, respectively.

Supreme Court upholds state bans on transgender athletes in girls' sports

03:00

Read the full story here.

Members of the public wait in line to attend an open session of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg via Getty Images

It’s a two-box day at the Supreme Court — as expected — with four cases remaining. So, what does that mean?

At 9:55 a.m., on each decision day, staff from the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office walk out of a back room and into the press office with one, or two, or occasionally three boxes. They’re rectangular, gray in color, and they open from the top — about half the size of a banker's box.

Each box typically holds up to two opinions. So if it’s a two-box day, we know there will be three or four decisions. 

At 10:00 a.m., when the Chief Justice announces the first case, the box is opened, and the written opinion packet corresponding to the announced case is handed out to the reporters anxiously waiting in the press room. We run out to our computers in the press room, and deliver the news. 

The Trump administration has cited the 1884 Supreme Court case Elk v. Wilkins as part of its defense of the president's executive order to end birthright citizenship.

The high court ruled against John Elk, who had filed a legal challenge after he was denied the right to register to vote because an election official said he was Native American and not a U.S. citizen.

Elk was believed to have been a member of what is now known as the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, with which he said he had severed ties.

The Supreme Court decided in the case that Native Americans born within the territory of the U.S. did not have birthright citizenship.

For the Trump administration, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in the administration's brief that the 19th century decision shows birthright citizenship only applies to people who are subject to the “political jurisdiction” of the U.S.

Trump insists the U.S. is the only nation to do so as he seeks to deny birthright citizenship for children whose parents are living in the country illegally or have temporary legal status.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in soon on the constitutionality of his birthright citizenship order. Trump signed it on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, amid his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

In April, Trump posted on Truth Social: “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!”

In fact, about three dozen countries, mostly in the Americas, guarantee automatic citizenship to children born on their territory — among them, Canada, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico.

Read the full story here.

The Supreme Court has had a busy term heading into the final day of rulings, filled with consequential decisions that have had global impacts while expanding some presidential powers and reining in others.

Here are some of the major rulings from this term.

Tariffs: In a 6-3 ruling, the court found in February that Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping global tariffs using a federal law reserved for a national emergency.

Redistricting: The court, which had previously criticized judges who changed election rules late in the process, did just that in April in a 6-3 decision that weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act and set off a frenzy of redistricting actions across the country.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule today in two cases focused on transgender youths in sports, and the justices could consolidate their decision.

During oral arguments in the cases — West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox — in January, the justices appeared likely to uphold state laws that ban transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's school and college sports.

The cases were brought by two transgender students: Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox. Both secured injunctions by lower courts, which allowed them to continue playing their sports.

Trump and Republicans have seized on transgender rights and the larger community in recent years, with Trump often touting the GOP's moves to ban "men in women's sports."

Today is the final day of the Supreme Court's “October 2025” term. When the justices finish today, they will adjourn for their summer recess, after hearing arguments in 58 cases this term.

Decisions will begin at 10:00 a.m. ET.

The decisions made by the court this term touched on some of the most important political and cultural issues of our time, from executive power, immigration, and transgender rights, to gun rights, economics, and election law, just to name a few.

The court is expected to rule today in a case brought by Republicans challenging the legality of long-standing campaign finance restrictions that limit how much national political party committees can spend in coordination with individual candidates.

When the justices heard oral arguments in December, it was unclear how they would rule. A lawyer defending the limits argued that the case should be dismissed as moot because of Vice President JD Vance’s hesitation to say whether he will run for office in 2028.

The case was brought by the fundraising arms of House and Senate Republicans, as well as former Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, who lost a re-election bid in 2022. Vance challenged the campaign finance restrictions when he was a Senate candidate in 2022.

The outcome of the birthright citizenship case is expected to be the most consequential of the rulings the Supreme Court issues this term.

The court is expected to determine the lawfulness of the executive order Trump signed on the first day of his second term to end the 14th Amendment's guarantee that people born on U.S. soil are American citizens.

The case stems from a class action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union brought in New Hampshire last year. The executive order has never been in effect after courts around the country blocked it.

The justices appeared skeptical of the legality of the executive order when they heard oral arguments in early April, which Trump attended in person — a first for a sitting president.

Chief Justice John Roberts and several of the other conservative justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, questioned the administration's defense of the order to end birthright citizenship.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue rulings in its four remaining cases today, the last day of the term.

• Trump v. Barbara: This is the birthright citizenship case, challenging the lawfulness of Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
• West Virginia v. B.P.J.: This case is about whether Title IX of a 1972 federal law prevents a state from consistently designating girls’ and boys’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth and whether the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment prevents a state from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.
• Little v. Hecox: This case focuses on whether laws that seek to “protect” women’s and girls’ sports by limiting participation to women and girls based on sex violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
• National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission: This case involves a challenge to campaign finance restrictions by Republicans as they've sought to overturn limits on party committees' spending money in coordination with individual candidates.