Trump Seeks SCOTUS Rehearing After 6-3 Birthright Citizenship Loss, First Since 1965

For legal and reg-tech professionals, the rehearing petition is a case study in post-judgment strategy: a 6-3 defeat with a clear majority opinion is nearly impossible to overturn through rehearing, yet it serves as a political wedge and keeps the administration’s litigation posture aggressive. The last grant was 1965, so the motion underscores the finality of Supreme Court decisions and the high bar for revisiting constitutional rulings.

President Donald Trump on July 8, 2026, announced he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rehear its June 30 ruling that affirmed birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, a decision he called a “miscarriage of justice” and “absolutely insane.” The court, by a 6-3 vote, struck down Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order that sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are undocumented or temporarily present. The rehearing request, announced on Truth Social, sets up a highly unusual procedural move: the Supreme Court has not agreed to rehear a case already argued since 1965, underscoring the rarity of such a request being granted.

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District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s request to delay payment of nearly $5.8 million to E.

This immediate challenge comes as the full force of the 2025-26 term’s most consequential decisions is still being digested. The birthright citizenship ruling, widely celebrated by civil rights groups as a vindication of the 14th Amendment’s plain text, had broadly exposed the limits of executive power over citizenship. Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion explicitly stated that children born in the U.S. “to parents unlawfully or temporarily present” are “citizens at birth,” a formulation that left little room for administrative reinterpretation. Trump’s executive order was the centerpiece of his immigration agenda, making this legal loss a significant blow to his second-term policy goals.

The call for rehearing is procedurally extraordinary. Under Supreme Court rules, rehearing petitions are almost never granted absent a clear factual or legal error, or the emergence of new, compelling evidence. The last successful rehearing was in 1965, and the Court typically receives dozens of such requests each term, almost all of which are denied without comment. Legal scholars view this move as largely symbolic—a political gesture rather than a viable legal path—especially since Trump simultaneously urged Congress to pass legislation ending birthright citizenship, an outcome that would require a constitutional amendment under the current understanding of the 14th Amendment.

The rehearing request also sits alongside other aggressive legal tactics by the Trump administration. On the same day, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s request to delay payment of nearly $5.8 million to E. Jean Carroll in a sexual abuse and defamation case; Trump’s lawyers immediately appealed. That pattern—pursuing rehearings, stays, and appeals—reflects a broader strategy of litigating through every available forum.