Republican lawmakers and allies of President Donald Trump are calling for a constitutional amendment that would restrict birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled to uphold the more than 150-year-old constitutional guarantee that most people born on American soil are automatically citizens.
In a narrow 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s Executive Order that sought to impose sweeping restrictions on birthright citizenship, drawing swift backlash from the President and many other Republicans.
Read More: The Fight Over Birthright Citizenship Has Always Been Political, Not Just Legal
Speaking to reporters following the ruling, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that birthright citizenship has “been abused.”
“It’s one of those things that was intended to serve a noble and important purpose and has been thwarted and overused and abused,” the Republican leader said. “And so I’m sure that we’ll continue to look at that. I’m sure that the conclusion from this decision is you have to amend the Constitution to fix that.”
Other GOP lawmakers have more forcefully called for a constitutional amendment that would severely restrict the parameters of birthright citizenship from the longstanding interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which established that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens” and was at the center of the case before the Supreme Court.
“We’re going to need a constitutional amendment,” Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said on X minutes after the Court issued its ruling.
Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, calling the issue of birthright citizenship a “national crisis,” announced a “forthcoming” amendment.
“That amendment will restore the original American understanding of citizenship. It will restore the right of the American people to define their own political community,” Schmitt said o
