Attorney John Sauer, the United States (U.S) Solicitor General, has laid out how the federal government would handle children born in the U.S if automatic birthright citizenship were no longer recognized for certain parents.
Sauer explained the process while defending President Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.”
The order seeks to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to children born on U.S. soil when neither parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Under current law, based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, nearly all children born in the United States are recognized as citizens at birth.
This interpretation has been in place for more than a century and was affirmed by the Supreme Court in the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
Trump’s order challenges that interpretation and argues that birth alone is not enough if a child’s parents are not lawfully part of the United States political community.
How Children Born Without Birthright Citizenship Will Be Treated
Attorney John Sauer told the court that the proposed system would rely on existing federal databases, not interviews or investigations of mothers for birthright citizenship cases.
He rejected the idea that pregnant women would be questioned about their intentions or forced to testify about their status.
Instead, the decision would turn only on the lawful immigration status of the parents at the time of birth.
According to Sauer, when a child is born in a hospital today, the birth is entered into a computer system that automatically generates a birth certificate and initiates an application for a Social Security number.
That system, known as Enumeration at Birth (EAB), has been in use for decades.
“There is a computer program that currently automatically generates a Social Security number. Non‑citizens can have them, so it doesn’t prove citizenship,” Sauer stated.
Under the executive order, hospitals and states would still issue birth certificates for all children born in the U.S., regardless of parents’ status.
What would change is how federal agencies treat those documents.
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A U.S. birth certificate alone would no longer be accepted as proof of citizenship for children born after the order takes effect in cases covered by the rule.
SSA to Continue Issuing Social Security Numbers
Furthermore, Sauer told the court that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has already prepared guidance on how it would handle this change if the order were allowed to stand.
Under the plan, the SSA would keep issuing Social Security numbers to newborns, even if they are not classified as U.S. citizens.
This is because Social Security numbers do not serve as proof of citizenship.
Non‑citizens who have work authorization already receive it under the existing law.
The system would automatically check federal immigration databases to confirm whether at least one parent was a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth.
If neither parent met that standard, the child would not be recognized as a U.S. citizen for federal purposes.
Sauer said this process would be automatic and invisible to most families.
Parents would not be stopped at hospitals, and no decision would be made face‑to‑face at the time of birth.
If a child is denied recognition of citizenship and the parents believe the decision is wrong, Sauer said there would be a process to challenge it after the fact.
That dispute process would occur later, not in the delivery room.
In 2026, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in the case on the legality of Birthright Citizenship, not to decide its final meaning yet, but to determine whether lower courts acted properly in halting the order nationwide.
Until the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the constitutional question, the long-standing rule remains that children born in the United States are U.S. citizens, with narrow exceptions such as children of foreign diplomats.
