The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868 as the centerpiece of Reconstruction, has become the legal battlefield for two of the most contentious issues in American politics: who qualifies as a citizen by birth, and whether participants in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack can be barred from holding office.
The amendment's opening sentence, known as the Citizenship Clause, declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." For more than 125 years, this provision has been understood to grant automatic citizenship to nearly everyone born on American soil. Its Section 3, the Disqualification Clause, bars any person who has taken an oath to support the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" from holding federal or state office.
Both provisions are now before the courts in cases that could redefine the boundaries of presidential power and constitutional interpretation.
Birthright citizenship under challenge
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14160, which purports to deny citizenship to babies born in the United States if their mother is present "unlawfully" or "lawfully but temporarily" and their father is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. The order directs federal agencies to withhold passports and Social Security numbers from affected children.
The order has never taken effect. Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour of Seattle called it "blatantly unconstitutional" in one of the first rulings blocking it. Multiple federal courts followed, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the administration's challenge to those injunctions. On April 1, 2026, the justices heard two hours of oral argument in Barbara v. Trump. According to SCOTUSBlog's analysis, a majority of the Court appeared likely to strike down the order.
The legal challenge rests on more than a century of precedent. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States, including children of parents who are not citizens. Justice Horace Gray wrote for the majority that the amendment "in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States." Congress later codified that understanding in 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a).
Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar argued in SCOTUSBlog that the amendment's text "focuses entirely on the baby – on the person born, not the persons giving birth." The words address birthplace and jurisdiction, not parental status. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, whose office is challenging the order, warned that "if they can, with the markings of a pen in an executive order, eradicate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, folks better be aware that they can do the same with every other right that they take for granted."
The Brennan Center for Justice noted that during the 1866 debate over the amendment, Senator John Conness affirmed that the language "declares that the children of all parentage...should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States." The final text included no exclusion for children of immigrants.
The insurrection clause and election eligibility
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment has generated a separate legal and political storm. Ratified to prevent former Confederate leaders from returning to power, the clause disqualifies from office anyone who previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
The clause lay largely dormant for more than a century. Congress removed its restrictions on most former Confederates through the Amnesty Act of 1872 and expanded that amnesty in 1898. It was invoked only once in a legal case: in 1919, Congress refused to seat Representative Victor L. Berger after he was convicted under the Espionage Act for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. The Supreme Court overturned that conviction in 1921 in Berger v. United States, and Berger later served three terms.
The clause returned to prominence after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. In December 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that Trump had engaged in insurrection and was therefore ineligible to appear on the state's Republican primary ballot. The court stayed its decision pending appeal.
On March 4, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Colorado decision in Trump v. Anderson. But the justices did not rule on whether Trump had engaged in insurrection. Instead, the per curiam opinion held that states lack the authority to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates. The Court ruled that only Congress, acting through legislation, has the power to determine who is disqualified and under what procedures.
Three liberal justices concurred in the result but rejected much of the majority's reasoning. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, noted that "it is hard to understand why the Constitution would require a congressional supermajority to remove a disqualification if a simple majority could nullify Section 3's operation by repealing or declining to pass implementing legislation."
Lawfare noted that the Court's focus on the "self-execution" issue left unresolved the underlying questions: whether January 6 qualified as an "insurrection," whether Trump "engaged" in it, and whether the president counts as an "officer of the United States" covered by the clause.
What the amendment was designed to do
The Fourteenth Amendment emerged from the ashes of the Civil War. Before its ratification, the Constitution was largely silent on citizenship. The Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision held that Black people, whether enslaved or free, could never be American citizens. Republicans in Congress drafted the amendment to repudiate that ruling and to prevent returning Southern states from stripping rights from the newly freed population.
Section 1 established birthright citizenship and guaranteed equal protection and due process. Section 2 penalized states that denied voting rights to adult male citizens by reducing their congressional representation. Section 3 targeted former Confederate officials. Section 4 validated Union war debts while invalidating Confederate debts. Section 5 granted Congress enforcement power.
The amendment has since become the most litigated provision of the Constitution. Its Due Process and Equal Protection clauses have underpinned landmark rulings on school desegregation, abortion, same-sex marriage, and affirmative action. Its Citizenship Clause has governed the status of millions of Americans born to immigrant parents.
What comes next
The Supreme Court's ruling on the birthright citizenship case is expected by late June or early July 2026. If the Court strikes down the executive order, the administration would need a constitutional amendment or congressional legislation to alter birthright citizenship, both requiring thresholds the current political alignment makes unlikely.
The Section 3 dispute remains in legislative limbo. Without a congressional statute establishing procedures for disqualification, the clause appears unenforceable against federal candidates. Yet the political and legal pressure to address its application continues, particularly as Trump serves his second term.
Whether the Fourteenth Amendment will be reinterpreted to narrow its citizenship guarantee or to activate its disqualification mechanism will depend on judicial rulings in the coming months and on whether Congress ever acts to implement Section 3. What is clear is that a Reconstruction-era amendment drafted to secure rights for formerly enslaved people now sits at the center of twenty-first-century fights over who counts as an American and who may hold the nation's highest offices.