Donald Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship hit a wall at the Supreme Court on Thursday — and it didn’t take much. One basic question from Justice Brett Kavanaugh was enough to unravel the argument.
“This is just a very practical question, how this is going to work?” Kavanaugh asked. “What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with the newborn?”
John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, didn’t have a clear answer. He said, “I don’t think they do anything different,” and pointed to the executive order, which tells federal officials not to accept documents that wrongly label someone as a U.S. citizen.
Kavanaugh pushed back: “How are they going to know that?”
Sauer tried to explain, saying: “The states can continue to… the federal officials will have to figure that out.”
Kavanaugh wasn’t satisfied. “How?” he pressed.
Sauer stumbled. “So, you can imagine a number of ways that the federal official could—”
“Such as?” Kavanaugh interrupted.
“Such as they could require a showing of, you know, documentation showing legal presence in the country,” Sauer said. He mentioned looking at visa types like B-1, which could block birthright citizenship in some cases.
Kavanaugh didn’t buy it. “For all the newborns? Is that how it’s going to work?”
Flustered and unprepared, Sauer admitted the government had no plan. “Again, we don’t know because the agencies were never given the opportunity to formulate the guidance,” he said.
That admission — no clear plan, no clear process — struck at the heart of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship. Listen to the exchange below.
In a wild moment at the Supreme Court just now, Trump Solicitor General John Sauer admits to Justice Brett Kavanaugh that Trump has no idea how to actually enforce his birthright citizenship order. pic.twitter.com/OFRROsRWW5
— Max Burns (@themaxburns) May 15, 2025
