House Speaker Mike Johnson said on July 5 that House Republicans are looking at every angle to limit birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court shielded it from President Donald Trump’s order. He said the party would move quickly, and that if there is a legislative fix, lawmakers would advance it immediately.
The timing matters because Trump has already put the issue back on Congress’s desk. On June 30, he wrote that no long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary and urged Congress to start TODAY on ending what he called expensive and unfair birthright citizenship, adding that lawmakers would have his Complete and Total Support.
Johnson made his case on Sunday, where he drew a sharp distinction between two possible paths. A statute could move faster if Republicans can agree on the language, he said, but a constitutional amendment would take more time. That is the practical choice now facing Republicans in Congress: a bill can be written and brought forward, while an amendment would need two-thirds approval from both chambers and then ratification by three-fourths of the states.
The court ruling that prompted the scramble was a 6-3 decision on June 30, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh part of the majority that overturned the president’s executive order. Kavanaugh wrote separately that Congress could otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country, but he also said Congress has not yet done so.
That leaves Republican leaders with a path that exists in theory and one that does not appear to exist in practice. A controversial constitutional amendment would face a steep climb in a Congress where GOP margins are ultra-slim and lawmakers are already struggling to finish basic legislation in a midterm year. Hardline conservatives are using the issue as a rallying cry, but the votes needed for an amendment are far beyond what this Congress can reasonably deliver.
Chip Roy underscored the mood on the House floor, saying he had “no interest in funding the operations of a government that has been undermined by this United States Supreme Court.” For Johnson, the next step is less about rhetoric than arithmetic: if Republicans can put together a statutory fix, they will try to move it right away. If they cannot, the constitutional route remains a much longer fight, and one that likely outlives this Congress.
