In a 6-3 ruling handed down this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down former president Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order that sought to end birthright citizenship for children of non-resident foreigners. The decision confirms that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically an American citizen, regardless of parents’ immigration status. Roughly 1.9 million Brazilians live in the United States, and Brazilian consular authorities estimate that 120 000 children were born there since 2020. Had the executive order survived, those minors could have become stateless or lost eligibility for U.S. passports, complicating family mobility and corporate assignments. Multinationals routinely rely on an employee’s U.S.-born dependants holding American citizenship to facilitate re-entry, schooling and health-insurance coverage. Immigration lawyers now expect a surge in I-131 re-entry permit applications and derivative green-card filings that were put on hold during the legal uncertainty. For Brazilian parents contemplating U.S. work transfers, the ruling removes a major deterrent and restores predictability to long-term planning. The decision may also influence debates in Brazil, where a congressional caucus has floated constitutional amendments restricting jus soli for children of transient foreigners. Observers argue that today’s U.S. verdict weakens that initiative by reinforcing international norms on the prevention of statelessness.
Source: UOL/AFP
