President Donald Trump announced on August 6, 2026, that he was signing two executive actions on immigration: one to limit birthright citizenship and one to curb "birth tourism" (NPR).

The White House published the action under the title "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," accompanied by a fact sheet titled "Trump Ends Birth Tourism and Protects the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship" (White House).

The first action aims to narrow the number of people automatically eligible for U.S. citizenship by being born on American soil. The second seeks to curb "birth tourism" — the practice of traveling to the U.S. to give birth so the child obtains citizenship — by tightening visa restrictions on visitors who enter the country for that purpose (NPR).

Trump said he believed the actions would be constitutional but did not provide additional details (NPR).

The announcement follows a Supreme Court defeat on the same issue. On his first day in office of his second term, Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of certain immigrants — specifically those born after February 19, 2025, whose parents are neither citizens nor lawful permanent residents (NPR; Reuters; NAACP Legal Defense Fund).

That order was immediately challenged by opponents who said it violated the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, which makes anyone born in the country a citizen with very limited exceptions. The order was blocked by several lower courts and never took effect (NPR).

In June 2026, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's previous efforts to declare that children born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. The court struck down the executive order by a 6-3 vote, upholding a broad conception of birthright citizenship (NPR).

The 6-3 margin drew concern from immigration advocates and legal observers who considered the legal question of birthright citizenship long settled (NPR).

The original January 2025 executive order, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," argued that the 14th Amendment has always excluded from citizenship persons born in the United States but not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. (White House). Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a January 2025 briefing that the administration believes birthright citizenship is unconstitutional (White House). A November 2025 White House release described the order as ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants (White House).

A PBS fact-check estimated that, if implemented, the original order would affect approximately 255,000 babies born each year over decades (PBS).

The broader context here is a presidency testing the outer boundaries of executive authority on immigration policy less than two months after the Supreme Court struck down its central citizenship directive by a single-vote margin. The June ruling established that the prior executive order exceeded presidential power under the 14th Amendment, yet the administration is returning with a successor action framed as "continuing" the same policy objective. Trump's assertion that the new actions are constitutional, without offering a supporting legal rationale, leaves their statutory and constitutional basis unclear pending further detail from the White House.

The birth tourism component introduces a separate legal track. Visa restrictions on visitors seeking to give birth in the U.S. operate under the State Department's consular authority, which may give the administration more latitude than the birthright citizenship question, where the 14th Amendment's text and the Supreme Court's June ruling set direct constitutional constraints. How the two actions are structured, whether the birthright citizenship provisions differ from the struck-down January 2025 order, and what legal theories the administration advances to distinguish the new action from the one invalidated in June remain unanswered.

What is clear is the administration's intent to keep pressing on both fronts. The title, "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," signals the White House views the August 2026 actions as a continuation rather than a retreat from the January 2025 order. Whether courts agree with that framing will determine whether the new actions take effect or meet the same injunctions that blocked their predecessor.