The Supreme Court said every child born on American soil is a citizen, and Scott Jennings says that ruling is an abomination that hands a long-term advantage to China.
Story Snapshot
- The Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal or temporary visitors.
- A 6-3 majority reaffirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment covers nearly everyone born in the United States, with very narrow exceptions.
- Scott Jennings blasted the ruling as an “abomination,” tying it to birth tourism schemes used by wealthy Chinese nationals.
- Three conservative justices dissented, arguing the amendment’s original purpose has been twisted into a modern political project.
The Supreme Court closes the door on Trump’s birthright citizenship order
The Supreme Court’s Trump v. Barbara decision did something simple but huge: it shut down Donald Trump’s attempt to narrow who counts as an American at birth. The executive order tried to say that babies born here to parents who are illegal or here only temporarily are not citizens. The Court rejected that move and said the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause still means what it has meant for more than a century.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. He said that children born in the United States to parents who are here unlawfully or only on temporary visas are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment. He leaned on the 1898 Wong Kim Ark case, which held that anyone born here is a citizen, except for rare groups like children of foreign diplomats or hostile occupying armies.
Why Scott Jennings calls the ruling an abomination that helps China
Scott Jennings did not see a dry constitutional dispute. On his show, he described the ruling as an “abomination” that invites abuse of American generosity. He pointed to “birth tourism” businesses that market U.S. births to wealthy foreigners, especially from China. Jennings highlighted federal prosecutions over visa fraud, where people lied to get tourist visas so they could deliver babies on American soil and lock in U.S. passports for their children.
Jennings’ argument fits a broader conservative worry: if citizenship can be gained simply by crossing a border and giving birth, then foreign elites can game the system. From a common-sense, America-first view, that feels less like fairness and more like loophole shopping. However, Jennings did not cite firm numbers on how many such cases exist or how large a share of overall illegal immigration they represent. That leaves his “benefits China” claim more as a warning than a proven fact.
The conservative dissent and the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment
Three conservative justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—broke with the majority and sided with Trump’s position. Justice Alito said the Court had made a “serious mistake,” capturing the belief that the Constitution’s words have been stretched far beyond what the post–Civil War framers intended. Their view lines up with years of conservative scholarship arguing that “subject to the jurisdiction” was meant to be narrow, not a catch-all.
Jennings highlighted Justice Thomas’s complaint that the Fourteenth Amendment has been “repurposed for political projects.” Thomas and many conservatives stress that the amendment’s first goal was to guarantee full citizenship for formerly enslaved Americans and their children, whose allegiance and presence in the country were unquestioned. They argue that using the same clause to cover tourists, illegal border crossers, and birth tourism customers turns a hard-won moral safeguard into a tool for global citizenship shopping, which clashes with traditional ideas of loyalty and belonging.
Longstanding precedent and why the majority would not move
The majority, though, was not interested in a drastic re-reading. For them, Wong Kim Ark and decades of cases after it already answered the question. The Court in 1898 said the Fourteenth Amendment affirmed the “ancient and fundamental rule” that birth within the territory brings citizenship, except for narrow groups clearly outside our protection, like diplomats and hostile soldiers. Everyone else, including resident aliens and temporary visitors, falls under American law and therefore under American jurisdiction.
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Scott Jennings Calls Birthright Citizenship Ruling by SCOTUS an ‘Abomination’ That Benefits China pic.twitter.com/Jrlrqnu0db— William Kornblum (@KornblumWi27974) July 1, 2026
That logic is echoed in later decisions and in the way federal agencies have treated citizenship for generations. Legal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union argue that changing it now would require a new constitutional amendment or a radical break from precedent. The Supreme Court’s ruling confirms that a president cannot, by executive order, carve millions of American-born children out of the national community. For constitutional traditionalists, that is stability; for sovereignty hawks like Jennings, it feels like a locked door blocking needed reform.
Where the battle goes next for conservatives worried about birthright abuse
From an American conservative values angle, Jennings’ outrage speaks to three fears: loss of control over the border, erosion of the meaning of citizenship, and foreign actors exploiting American openness. Yet the hard reality is that the Supreme Court has now strongly reaffirmed birthright citizenship, including for children of illegal and temporary visitors. Any serious change would need Congress and three-fourths of the states to amend the Constitution, or a future Court willing to buck 150 years of settled law.
That leaves conservatives with narrower but real options more grounded in common sense: tighten visa screening to stop fraud, crack down on commercial birth tourism operations, improve enforcement against illegal entry, and ensure voting rolls stay clean. Those steps respect the Court’s reading of the Fourteenth Amendment while answering public concern about abuse. In other words, the Constitution clearly sets who is a citizen; it is up to policymakers to decide how easy it is to game that status from abroad.
Sources:
youtube.com, cfr.org, fam.state.gov, aclu.org, supremecourt.gov, constitutioncenter.org, americanimmigrationcouncil.org
