The Trump administration will apparently not ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its June 30 ruling that struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship – the guarantee of U.S. citizenship to virtually everyone born in this country. Although Trump had indicated earlier this month that he intended to file a petition for rehearing in the case, Trump v. Barbara, the deadline for doing so – July 27 – has now passed, and no such brief appears on the court’s electronic docket for the case. We will update this story if that changes for any reason.
Trump issued the order on Jan. 20, 2025, shortly after his second inauguration. Legal challenges to the order followed immediately, and federal judges around the country agreed with the challengers – states, immigrants’ rights groups, and individuals – that the order violated the Constitution. When the Trump administration came to the Supreme Court last year, it asked the justices to weigh in on a different question: whether federal courts have the power to issue “universal” or “nationwide” injunctions, orders that bar the government from enforcing a law or policy anywhere in the United States. By a vote of 6-3 on June 27, 2025, the court ruled that they do not.
The challenges to Trump’s order then continued in the lower courts, and on Dec. 5, 2025, the justices agreed to review a ruling by a federal judge in New Hampshire striking down the order. On the final day before the court’s summer recess, the justices upheld the lower court’s ruling, with a majority determining that Trump’s order was unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the majority, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. He held that Trump’s order is inconsistent with the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, which provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with his five colleagues that the order could not stand, but for a different reason. He believed that the order violated a federal law containing language that is nearly identical to that of the citizenship clause.
Three justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch – dissented and would have allowed Trump’s order to go into effect.
On July 8, Trump indicated in a social media post that he planned to ask the Supreme Court “for a Rehearing … IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice,” Trump continued, “will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”
Under the Supreme Court’s rules, a petition for rehearing would have been due 25 days after the court’s decision. Because that date fell on a weekend – Saturday, July 25 – the due date became the following weekday: Monday, July 27. (As of this morning, no such petition has been electronically docketed.)
A petition for rehearing would have faced long odds. The court’s rules provide that such a petition will only be granted if it garners votes from “a majority of the Court, at the instance of a Justice who concurred in the judgment or decision.” In this case, that would have meant that Trump’s petition would have needed five votes, at least one of which (and, as a practical matter, two) would have to come from one of the justices who voted to strike down Trump’s order: Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, or Jackson (all of whom joined Roberts’ opinion for the majority) or Kavanaugh (who agreed with the result that the majority reached but not the reasoning).
History also suggests that Trump’s chances would have been slim. As law professor Stephen Vladeck noted, the Supreme Court has not agreed to reconsider its ruling in an argued case since 1965, when it modified its judgment “to permit further proceedings in the lower courts on issues the Court hadn’t resolved.” It has been even longer than that – going to back to 1956 – since the court granted rehearing and reversed its earlier decision on the merits.
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Trump administration appears not to have asked Supreme Court to rehear birthright citizenship case, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 28, 2026, 1:58 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/trump-administration-appears-not-to-have-asked-supreme-court-to-rehear-birthright-citizenship-ca/