In a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court ruled this morning that the Constitution guarantees automatic birthright citizenship to virtually all children born in the United States.
The ruling: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court's 6-3 opinion which firmly rejected the executive order that Trump issued on the first day of his second term.
About that order: It sought to bar citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to parents who either entered the country illegally or who are living and working here legally with temporary visas. The executive order never went into effect because every lower court judge to review it, concluded, in the words of one judge, that it was "blatantly unconstitutional."
In a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution guarantees automatic birthright citizenship to virtually all children born in the United States.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court's 6-3 opinion.
The decision firmly rejected the executive order that Trump issued on the first day of his second term. It sought to bar citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to parents who either entered the country illegally or who are living and working here legally with temporary visas. The executive order never went into effect because every lower court judge who reviewed it concluded, in the words of one judge, that it was "blatantly unconstitutional."
Trump has long maintained that the Constitution does not guarantee birthright citizenship. But as Chief Justice Roberts observed, the men who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution after the Civil War defined citizenship in broad terms on purpose, rejecting the views of those who wanted to limit citizenship. The resulting language of the amendment says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
Trump maintained that the provision was meant to apply only to former slaves, but "wasn't meant for the entire world to occupy the United States." That interpretation, however, has not been embraced by the courts or the legal norms of the country for 160 years. Indeed, Chief Justice Roberts' opinion for the court pointed to the court's landmark ruling well over a century ago in the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese immigrants. Back then, no documentation was required for immigrants entering the United States, and his parents ran a business in San Francisco until they ultimately returned to China. In 1895, their son visited his family in there, but was denied re-entry upon his return to the U.S., on the grounds that he was not a citizen. He challenged that denial and won in the Supreme Court.
By a 6-to-3 vote, the justices interpreted the words, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," to mean that all children born in the U.S. were automatically granted citizenship — with three limited exceptions, only one of which exists today — for the children of foreign diplomats.
The decision in the Wong Kim Ark case was so widely accepted that even in periods of great hostility to immigrants, the notion of birthright citizenship remained untouchable. So much so that in World War II, when Japanese citizens were held as enemy aliens in detention camps in the United States, their newborn children were automatically granted American citizenship because they were born on U.S. soil. In addition, Congress subsequently codified that legal understanding.
The ACLU's Cecillia Wang, herself a birthright citizen born to Chinese parents, argued the birthright case in April before the Supreme Court. As she put it, the men who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment deliberately chose to confer automatic citizenship on the child, not the parent, the idea being that "in America we do not punish children for the sins of their fathers, but instead we wipe the slate clean. When you're born in this country, we're all American, all the same."
Dissenting from Tuesday's decision were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito.
The Supreme Court yet again loosened campaign finance restrictions today by striking down limits on how much political parties may raise and spend on candidates.
The decision: By a 6-to-3 vote along ideological lines, the court ruled the law, which had been enacted in 1974, violates political parties' First Amendment rights. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion.
Why it matters: Thedecision means that parties get the best of both worlds. They can both coordinate with candidates and raise unlimited funds.
The Supreme Court yet again loosened campaign finance restrictions on Tuesday by striking down limits on how much political parties may raise and spend on candidates.
By a 6-to-3 vote along ideological lines, the court ruled the law, which had been enacted in 1974, violates political parties' First Amendment rights. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion.
At issue in the case was a post-Watergate law that Congress passed to limit the amount of money individuals can give to political parties. The law, the Federal Election Campaign Act, also limited how much money political parties can spend on their candidates. Other types of organizations, like political action committees and Super PACs, have no limits on the amount of money they can raise and spend on elections. But unlike parties, they cannot coordinate with candidates.
Tuesday's decision means that parties get the best of both worlds. They can both coordinate with candidates and raise unlimited funds.
Republicans, including Vice President Vance and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, challenged the law as an unconstitutional violation of political parties' First Amendment right to raise and spend money on their candidates.
Backed by the Trump Justice Department, they contended that the only justification for imposing a fundraising limit on parties is to prevent corruption, but they maintained that there is no evidence that the law has prevented corruption.
This decision overturns a 2001 Supreme Court case that declared the limits on party spending to be constitutional. It's the latest in a series of rulings since then that have unraveled campaign finance regulations.
The saga began in 2010, when the court ruled inCitizens United that corporations have a First Amendment right to unlimited spending on elections. The following year, the court dismantled Arizona's public election financing scheme, which gave money to less-funded candidates in order to equalize spending between politicians. And in 2014, the court struck down limits on how much money an individual can donate in national elections. All of these decisions were ideologically split votes, just like Tuesday's ruling, and in each case, the court overturned the regulations for burdening the First Amendment right to spend on elections.
The practical implications of Tuesday's ruling are unclear. Lawyers for the Democratic Party, who intervened in the case in support of the campaign finance restrictions, argued that they are necessary to prevent quid pro quo corruption. Authorizing unlimited coordinated expenditures would "fundamentally reshape the campaign finance regime," they wrote. "The potential for actual or apparent corruption is obvious."
Further, in previous decisions, the high court cited these anti-corruption protections as reasons why other campaign finance regulations could be rolled back without worry.
But the Republicans who brought the case argued that the risks of corruption are low. "It doesn't make any sense to think of a party as 'corrupting' its candidates," lawyers for the Republicans argued in a brief submitted to the court, "because the very aim of a political party is to influence its candidate's stance."
The Supreme Court once again leaped into the culture wars this morning, ruling that states may ban transgender girls from participating in sports at publicly funded schools.
The backstory: At the heart of the case is Title IX, the landmark civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal money. Enacted in 1972, the law has revolutionized women's sports by requiring equal treatment for male and female athletes, including proportional scholarship funding and equal facilities.
The ruling: The Supreme Court ruled that since Title IX explicitly allows sex-segregated athletic teams, states are free to limit team players to their sex at birth.
Bans of trans women and girls in sports: In recent years, 27 states have barred trans women and girls from participating in girls' sports. The issue has become the newest flashpoint in both politics and law — especially after 2024 when the Trump presidential campaign aired attack ads on the subject more than 15,000 times, putting Democrats on the defensive.
The Supreme Court once again leaped into the culture wars on Tuesday, ruling that states may ban transgender girls from participating in sports at publicly funded schools.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has long coached his daughters' and other girls' basketball teams at school, wrote the court's majority opinion.
The court's decision follows last year's ruling, which upheld state laws that make it illegal for doctors and other health professionals to provide gender-affirming care for minors. Since then, a total of 25 states have criminalized or banned gender-affirming care for minors. And in some states, bills have been introduced to ban gender-affirming care for adults, too.
At the heart of Tuesday's case is Title IX, the landmark civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal money. Enacted in 1972, the law has revolutionized women's sports by requiring equal treatment for male and female athletes, including proportional scholarship funding and equal facilities.
But in recent years, 27 states have barred trans women and girls from participating in girls' sports. The issue has become the newest flashpoint in both politics and law — especially after 2024 when the Trump presidential campaign aired attack ads on the subject more than 15,000 times, putting Democrats on the defensive.
Supporters of the ban on trans athletes say the laws are needed to prevent athletes whose assigned sex at birth was male from having an unfair advantage in women's sports. Opponents of the transgender bans say they discriminate based on sex, in violation of both federal law and the Constitution's guarantee to equal protection of the law. And for athletes at every level, the issue is deeply personal, with tennis greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova on opposing sides, for example, along with hundreds of other high-profile athletes.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court tried to thread the needle, ruling that since Title IX explicitly allows sex-segregated athletic teams, states are free to limit team players to their sex at birth.
The two cases before the court were factually quite different. One involved Lindsey Hecox, a trans college student barred by Idaho law from trying out for the Boise State University varsity women's track team. She challenged Idaho's ban on trans athletes, contending it violated her right to equal protection of the law under the Constitution. Ultimately, after dropping out of school, she won her case in the lower courts, but upon returning in 2025, she decided not to play varsity sports.
This is a developing story and will be updated Copyright 2026 NPR
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President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations. More than a year into his second term, the White House has taken a sweeping approach to curbing illegal and legal migration.
President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportations. More than a year into his second term, the White House has taken a sweeping approach to curbing illegal and legal migration.
Ximena Bustillo, NPR's immigration policy correspondent, breaks down the five strategies that make up the administration's mass deportation policy.
Over the past year, judges as high up as on the U.S. Supreme Court have weighed in on the measures taken. In some instances, district court rulings have barred some of the strategies, including ordering federal officers to stop making arrests in immigration courts.
Other efforts have been upheld by the courts, including the Supreme Court's most recent ruling allowing the administration to end temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians and a policy that allows border officials to turn migrants away before they physically cross to claim asylum.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday weighs in on Trump's landmark executive order that sought to end birthright citizenship.
Bustillo travels to Arizona, California and New York to break down this strategy — and the impacts on the agency, federal workers and immigrants going through these complicated systems.
Relying on over a year of reporting, policy memos, data and ultimately dozens of interviews, the Trump administration's strategy becomes clear.
After leaving a domestic violence situation, Jessica found housing help through several nonprofits and is now renting a house on her own.
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Topline:
Homelessness among families in the L.A. area has been getting worse and navigating housing instability is a constant challenge.
The backstory: In 2025, nearly three quarters of families in California with young children struggled to meet a basic need such as housing or utilities, according to a survey by the Stanford Center on Early Childhood — one of the highest levels since 2022. And resources for unhoused families have become increasingly scarce, too.
In their words: We spoke to five families with young children in Southern California who spoke of how they ended up struggling to stay housed. They shared varied experiences of navigating housing stability in L.A., but all expressed a similar sentiment — the emotional weight of protecting their children and the visceral longing to preserve their kids’ childhoods.
Read on ... for their stories.
Homelessness among families with children has been growing.
In California, more than 74,000 children under age 4 experienced homelessness between 2022 and 2023, up from the year before, according to a report by SchoolHouse connection. The study found a similar dynamic across the United States.
Resources for unhoused families have become increasingly scarce, too, amid rising economic stress. Last year, the vast majority of families in California with young children struggled to meet a basic need such as housing or utilities, according to a survey by the Stanford Center on Early Childhood — one of the highest levels in years.
We spoke to five families with young children in Southern California who spoke of how they ended up struggling to stay housed, whether because of a job loss that depleted hard-earned savings, an eviction after a spike in rent, or escape from a home of domestic abuse.
They shared varied experiences of navigating housing stability in L.A., but all expressed a similar sentiment — the emotional weight of protecting their children and the visceral longing to preserve their kids’ childhoods.
(LAist is using first names only because of concerns around safety and potential ramifications.)
“I may not be rich, but I feel like seeing my daughter paint and draw, that makes me rich,” Erika says.
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Erika left a bad situation to prevent a worse one
'It's a struggle to be a mom in Los Angeles at this day and age, period.'
The repurposed motel room where Erika stays with her two children is bare in furnishings, but she’s laid down shaggy rugs and decorated the bunk beds with bright comforters. Her 8-year-old daughter’s bunk is covered in Hello Kitty decor.
“Here, in this room, it doesn't feel like I’m homeless,” she said.
It’s not Erika's first time in this shelter near Koreatown. The first was with her children’s father about two years ago after they were evicted. Their one-bedroom apartment in Crenshaw went from $1,200 to $1,800.
They had a baby boy while at the shelter, and moved out to Section 8 housing. But about a year ago, Erika took her children and left, breaking a cycle of domestic strife at the cost of becoming homeless again.
“I’m not going to have DCFS (the Department of Child and Family Services) come and take my kids from both of us because we’re fighting and we’re toxic,” she said. “I don't know where I would be right now if I didn't have this place. I would probably be in the street with my kids, or I probably wouldn't even have custody of my kids.”
Erika isn’t new to the foster care system. She herself entered foster care when she was 12 years old because of her mother’s drug addiction.
“I just knew that I didn't want to give the lifestyle that I was given to my children,” she said.
She shares custody of her children, and pines for the days where she’s with them. She’ll buy coloring supplies for her daughter from Ross across the street. Her 2-year-old son is busy climbing the beds and running around.
“I may not be rich, but I feel like seeing my daughter paint and draw, that makes me rich,” she said. “Even little things like reading my kid a book at night. As funny as this sounds, like no one read me a book.”
She said she’s working on going to school and getting her real estate license. She hopes to secure low-income housing. Research shows economic hardship — tied to the high cost of housing — is a primary driver of homelessness.
“Los Angeles is not a fairy tale, you know?” she said. “I know it's temporary. I know one day I'll get my house. I know one day, I'm gonna be cooking with my daughter watching ‘Cocomelon.’ One day, but I know I’m trying. I’m trying.”
After leaving a domestic violence situation, Jessica found housing help through several nonprofits and is now renting a house on her own.
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Jessica juggles three part-time jobs
'I have done everything possible … sometimes it’s just not enough.'
When Jessica fled her abusive husband, pregnant and with her two young boys, she told them they were on an adventure. They sought shelter in hotels.
“I would try to make it as fun as I could,” Jessica says. “I kept them entertained — a lot of jumping on the bed, a lot of just having fun or playing with their toys or being outside, like parks — just try to only be there when it was time to eat, shower and go to bed.”
But it wasn’t ideal for parenting. She couldn’t store groceries, the weekly rates were expensive, and transient visitors made it a less-than-ideal environment for her two kids.
“[It was] a never-ending rollercoaster,” she recalled.
After about six months, she got in touch with House of Ruth, a nonprofit that supports survivors of domestic violence, that helped her find housing and help with a portion of her rent. Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness among women.
But that help was time-limited, and she faced eviction after falling a month and a half behind on her payments.
When you see families, mothers and fathers with children and they're on the street or they're in shelters, it's not by the lack of effort, it's by the lack of resources and rent.
— Jessica, mother of three
“I was literally losing it. I didn't know if we were gonna be in the middle of the streets. I don't have family. I don't. It's just me and my kids,” she said, echoing a sentiment LAist heard from other families.
She was able to get rental help from a homeless prevention program through another nonprofit — a program designed to help families stay in their homes. That’s since ended, and now, she rents a house from a church in an L.A. suburb at a discount.
When LAist visited in January, Jessica had just moved into the two-bedroom. Her three young children — 7 and under — share the master bedroom. Her favorite part of her new house is a kitchen bar counter.
“The kids are really enjoying just sitting there and watching me cook and it feels like a hibachi restaurant,” she said.
When her kids are in school, she juggles three part-time jobs — at the church nearby, cleaning houses, and as a substitute teacher. She’s also in school full-time working toward a degree in healthcare administration. She wakes up at 2:30 in the morning and works on her schoolwork until her kids wake up around 6.
“They'll never see a time where like I'm crying or something like that. They always see me joking around with them, laughing with them, doing something with them,” she said.
“The most important thing is keeping a roof over my kids’ heads,” she added. “When you see families, um, mothers and fathers with children and they're on the street or they're in shelters, it's not by the lack of effort, it's by the lack of resources and rent.”
Caseworkers have helped Marie get connected to temporary shelter. Soon, she says, she will be moving into permanent housing and wants to get into this line of work to help others.
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Marie got clean for her daughter
'If I could have anything portrayed from any of this situation with me and my family, it would be that we love each other.'
Marie glanced at her phone, which has a timer of the days, hours, minutes she’s been sober.
“ I've been clean for 11 months, 12 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes,” she said.
Marie held her 4-month-old daughter, who blinked contently in the beam of the afternoon sun.
Last July, Marie was living in a “tiny home” in North Hollywood with her partner when she found out she was pregnant. She stopped using meth immediately.
“I was a drug addict for 25 years and stopped completely because of my daughter,” she said.
Housing resources for families
If your family doesn't have a safe place to stay, the Los Angeles County Coordinated Entry System (CES) is the county's front door for housing help. Instead of calling shelters one by one, you reach out once and the system works to connect you to shelter and services in your area based on what your family needs.
Demand is high, so there can be a wait, officials say.
Marie became homeless about three years ago after being in and out of jail. She’d been arrested for identify fraud and larceny. With no family nearby, she began living in her truck. “It was not easy. Living homeless is not for the weak at all,” she said. Marie also lives with bipolar disorder.
She and her partner were able to move into a tiny home, which she said, at the time, was “awesome” — until she was pregnant.
“I was like, OK listen I’m about to pass out. There’s not enough ventilation there.” At seven months pregnant, she moved into a family shelter in San Fernando Valley, a 100-unit former motel. “Moving here was a luxury and a breath of fresh air.” Her water broke in their room about a month before her due date. Her baby spent 10 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. “She’s been doing great ever since.”
Pregnancy while homeless is common. A study from UC San Francisco in 2023 found that 1 in four unhoused women between 18 and 44 years old in California was pregnant. They’re also less likely to access prenatal resources.
Marie soaked in her daughter’s recent developments. Just days ago, the newborn haze cleared from her eyes and she looked up at her mom. “ And then she got this big old grin on her face. And it, I swear to God, it was the single most rewarding feeling in my life because she looked at me like she was falling in love with me for the first time,” she said.
In a few weeks, Marie said, they’ll be moving out of the shelter to a two-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys, where she’ll have permanent supportive housing, a program that helps pay for housing people living with mental illness. There, she’ll pay 30% of the rent. She said she plans to drive Uber part-time, so she can take her daughter around. She said she also wants to work in the field of homeless services after her experience and because of the people who helped her.
As for what she’s looking forward to in her new home for her baby? “Everything ... I’m excited to watch her grow.”
After losing his job, Wayne and his family lost their apartment in L.A. and had to sleep in and out of their car.
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Wayne moved his family away to find a home
'We're willing to give California up for that because the most important thing is to be housed and fed.'
When Wayne lost his job two years ago in A/V tech support, he had $30,000 saved up — enough to stay afloat for at least a little whil. But months went by, and the job market was brutal. Soon, they ran out of money and lost their one-bedroom apartment in L.A.
He and his partner stayed in and out of motels and in their car with their 4-year-old son at the time. “The first time we slept in the car it was really, really hot, and [the son] ended up with heat rashes all over his back,” he said.
Thousands of Angelenos use cars as shelter. Although it’s difficult to get an exact number, a recent Homeless Count found more than 23,000 people live in a vehicle on any given night.
His son, A., has autism and struggled to sleep. “He hates it,” Wayne said, who wanted to use the first initial of his son's name. “The only way he'll sleep in the car is if he's literally on, usually my lap.” LAist interviewed Wayne last fall, and chronicled his story.
But during the days, he would take A. to the park or the library, playing with him and his car toys.
“The most important thing is trying to make sure he basically is comfortable as much as possible, that he's [having] fun, that he's not really understanding what's going on — which I think we're doing a good job [at] so far,” Wayne said.
After months of searching, Wayne got a job out of state late last year — and left California, where was born and raised. They moved into a home in the dead of winter. His son ran into every room, exploring.
“He was kind of standing there for a bit, just kind of blank stare, and then I told him, ‘It's our home,’ and he smiled,” Wayne said. He said after months of living in their car, his son was still getting used to having a home.
“We left to go to the store earlier today, and he didn't wanna leave. He said ‘bye-bye’ to the house and started crying. He didn't wanna leave,” Wayne said. “He just wants to be inside. I think he just wants to take in — the stability of being inside."
Diana came to the U.S. two years ago with her three children for economic opportunity. “We went hungry a lot—way too much,” she said.
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Diana hopes her children don’t grow to resent her
'We came here to better ourselves, to do good things here, what we couldn’t do back home.'
Diana and her three children came to the U.S. from Venezuela two years ago, settling in L.A.. The economic collapse there has led to nearly 7.9 million Venezuelans leaving the country, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.
She said her family went hungry far too often. “ Es duro como mamá que los hijos le piden comida a uno y porque es horrible cuando un hijo le pide comida a uno y uno no tenga," she said through tears, hurt that she couldn't give her children food when they asked for it.
Desperate, she left with her kids, two of them teenagers — traveling through the notorious Darién Gap, a 70-mile stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama where hundreds of thousands of migrants have crossed in recent years — and where the number of deaths is largely known to be undercounted.
Children under 5 have been the fastest-growing group of migrants crossing the treacherous terrain. Diana and her children traveled for months.
"Pasado mucha necesidad de, este, la cual el, en la selva, la selva del Darién," she said, talking about the hardships faced crossing the Darién jungle. She said there were many rapes, deaths and murders.
When they got to Mexico, they lived on the streets.
" Andando en la calle, durmiendo en la calle, pidiendo limosna," she said. You go hungry, you live on the street, you just keep going.
After staying in motels in L.A., Diana found a temporary family shelter where her family shares one room, including with their 1-year-old dog Dulce.
She and her husband make minimum wage, cleaning at a factory that makes burritos, and are trying to figure out how to afford rent on their own. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, living on $16 an hour for a family of five when the median rent in the Los Angeles Metro area is over $2,000.
She says she's grateful they're in a better spot, not out on the street — but as a mother, she wants to give her children the best.
"Yo me imagínese que mi hijo me diga: 'Mamá, ¿y entonces para qué me sacaste de allá? ¿A tenernos aquí, porque en estas cuatro paredes?'" — "I can just imagine my son telling me, 'Mom, why did you take me out of there? Just to have us here, inside these four walls?'"
But she said here, her kids aren’t starving. They have food, and are going to school. Her oldest is enrolled in a summer program that has field trips across the city.
"No hay comida en mi país no hay y no me gustaría volver," she said. There's no food left in her home country. And that's what causes her anguish and anxiety: Getting caught by immigration, she and her family getting deported. "A veces me pone, me llena de angustia, de ansiedad, de eso, de saber de eso que me lleno."
She said she prays for protection over her and her children.
