Citizenship by Constitution, Not Executive Decree: A Literature Based Study of Trump v. Barbara and Birthright Citizenship in the United States

Abstract

This study examines Trump v. Barbara (2026) as a contemporary test of whether the President of the United States can narrow birthright citizenship through executive action. It addresses the long-standing disagreement between scholarship linking citizenship to parental allegiance or domicile and scholarship interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship Clause as a predominantly territorial rule. Using a literature based and doctrinal legal research design, the study synthesizes judicial opinions, constitutional and statutory provisions, historical materials, and legal scholarship obtained through Google Scholar and recognized legal databases. The analysis focuses on the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the continuing authority of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the competing reasoning of the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions, and the institutional limits of presidential control over citizenship recognition. The findings show that the Supreme Court treated jurisdiction as the ordinary governing power of the United States, reaffirmed the territorial principle associated with Wong Kim Ark, and rejected a parental domicile requirement. The Court nevertheless divided over the constitutional and statutory foundations of that conclusion. The study also finds that subsequent executive action and class litigation illustrate the continuing importance of administrative implementation and judicial remedies. It concludes that citizenship recognition must conform to constitutional status and that any lawful alteration of the governing rule must proceed through constitutionally authorized processes rather than unilateral executive instruction.