The United States Supreme Court has upheld the concept of birthright citizenship, a long-established constitutional right that guarantees citizenship to virtually all children born in the country.The court’s ruling on Tuesday is seen as a blow to President Donald Trump, who sought to overturn birthright citizenship through an executive order.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listBut in Tuesday’s decision, the court’s majority ruled that Trump’s actions ran afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.That law provides citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”, excepting the children of foreign diplomats.“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,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority’s ruling. “We keep that promise today.”What is birthright citizenship, what did the court say in its ruling, and how might Trump react? We look at those questions and more in this brief explainer.What is birthright citizenship?Birthright citizenship is the concept of granting citizenship to anybody born in the United States, with only a handful of very narrow exceptions. The children of foreign diplomats are notably excluded.The concept was formalised in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which was added after the US Civil War.It was written to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, would enjoy the equal protections conferred by citizenship. Advertisement Multiple Supreme Court cases have since upheld that right. One of the key precedents was set in an 1898 case called the United States versus Wong Kim Ark.That case concerned a man born in San Francisco to Chinese pa …
