Trump Plans Supreme Court Rehearing Request on Birthright Citizenship, a Rare Move

Trump says he'll ask the Supreme Court to rehear its birthright citizenship ruling, a legal maneuver that has succeeded only once in modern history.

The last time the Supreme Court granted a rehearing request after deciding a case was 1965 — and it has reversed itself after rehearing only once. Against those odds, President Trump announced he intends to ask the court to reconsider its recent ruling on birthright citizenship, which blocked his attempt to end the practice for children born in the U.S. to parents without legal status. Trump's announcement appears to have been prompted at least in part by a Fox News report showing a Texas hospital advertising maternity services to prospective patients in Mexico — an example, in his framing, of the consequences of the court's decision. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which grants citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil. Trump's executive order challenging that interpretation was struck down, and his push for a rehearing represents a continuation of that legal battle rather than a new avenue of attack. Legal observers note that rehearing requests — formally called petitions for rehearing en banc or rehearing by the same justices — are almost never granted at the Supreme Court level, making the practical likelihood of the court revisiting its decision quite low.

Why it matters

Birthright citizenship affects hundreds of thousands of people born in the U.S. each year to non-citizen parents, and the legal question of whether it can be curtailed by executive action has major implications for immigration policy. A successful rehearing would be virtually unprecedented in modern Supreme Court history.

What's next

The Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to accept or deny the rehearing request once it is formally filed.

Key facts

• The Supreme Court last granted a rehearing request after a case decision in 1965.
• The court has reversed itself after a rehearing only once in its history.
• Trump cited a Fox News report of a Texas hospital marketing maternity services in Mexico as motivation.
• The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, is the constitutional basis for birthright citizenship.
• Trump's original executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship was blocked by the court.

Bias & framing notes

The New York Times emphasized the extreme legal unlikelihood of the rehearing succeeding, framing the move as improbable in its headline. The Guardian focused more neutrally on the procedural announcement and included the Fox News/Texas hospital detail as context for Trump's motivation, without the same skeptical framing.