President Trump signed two executive orders on August 6, 2026 targeting birthright citizenship and the practice the administration calls “birth tourism.” The orders arrive weeks after the Supreme Court rejected his earlier attempt to curtail birthright citizenship, and they are drawn considerably more narrowly than the order the Court struck down.
The first order, titled “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” identifies specific categories of children the administration says should not receive automatic citizenship at birth. Those categories include children born to foreign government personnel such as embassy and consulate staff, children of individuals designated as members of foreign terrorist organizations or classified as “alien enemies,” and children whose parents engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.
The second order, “Ending Birth Tourism,” delegates presidential authority to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security and directs them to halt the practice. The operative mechanism is visa screening: consular officers are directed to deny nonimmigrant visas to applicants suspected of traveling to the United States for the purpose of giving birth on U.S. soil. The White House fact sheet characterizes the targeted population as travelers who work with syndicates to evade immigration laws and exploit temporary admission to obtain citizenship for a child.
The legal backdrop matters for anyone assessing how much of this will survive. In June 2026, the Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara upheld a broad reading of birthright citizenship and rejected the administration’s earlier executive order, which had swept in children born to parents unlawfully present or in temporary status. The new order avoids that framing. Instead it leans on the long-recognized “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” exception in the Fourteenth Amendment — the doctrine that has always excluded the children of accredited foreign diplomats. Extending that exception to a broader set of categories is the untested move, and it is the ground on which litigation is likely to be fought.
For prospective immigrants, the near-term practical consequence sits mostly on the visa side. The birth tourism order does not require a rule change to bite; it directs officers to apply heightened scrutiny now. B-1/B-2 applicants who are visibly pregnant, or whose travel plans suggest a medical delivery in the United States, may face more pointed questioning about the purpose of travel and ability to pay for care.
Neither order specifies an implementation deadline, and both are near-certain to draw court challenges. Families with pending or planned travel should track the litigation before assuming any particular outcome.
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Source: The White House / SCOTUSblog