Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship may affect Florida babies in July
The Supreme Court ruling on Friday curbing lower courts’ power to limit President Donald Trump’s directive to restrict birthright citizenship could have sweeping consequences in Florida, a state with one of the largest populations of immigrants in the country.
The ruling, which doesn’t take effect for 30 days, could mean that as of late July, babies born in Florida to parents who are undocumented or under certain visa categories might not be entitled to U.S. citizenship by birth unless there is a direct challenge in Florida’s federal courts.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told the Miami Herald in a statement that the ruling “takes a wrecking ball to the fundamental values long held in our nation that if you are born in the United States of America, you are by birth a U.S. citizen.”
In a 6-3 ruling, the court threw out nationwide injunctions from federal judges in three states that limited President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship while litigation is ongoing. The justices ruled that the lower courts’ injunctions in those three states had been too sweeping and must be limited only to the parties that sued the Trump administration to reverse the president’s citizenship order. The ruling does not weigh in on the constitutionality of Trump’s arguments to limit birthright citizenship.
The judges’ injunctions will now only affect the jurisdictions where they were filed, leaving other states such as Florida subject to Trump’s executive order.
Friday’s decision could have significant ramifications in Florida. One-fifth of the state’s population is foreign born. Estimates also put the undocumented population between half-a-million and 1.2 million immigrants.
“The idea that a child born in the United States could be denied citizenship simply because of who their parents are strikes at the heart of our American values and our democratic ideals,” Levine Cava said.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents Broward County in Congress, described Friday’s ruling a “vile betrayal of our Constitution,” while Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen called it a “moral affront to the very soul of our democracy.”
U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson of Miami said that the United States should “not become a nation that starts targeting newborns.
“Republicans have longed tried to get rid of as many checks and balances on President Trump and today, the Supreme Court eliminated a key check on the President,” said Wilson. “We must fight back to protect our democracy, our Constitution and the American people.”
The offices of U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar and Reps. Carlos Gimenez — Cuban-American members of Miami’s GOP delegation — did not immediately respond to Herald inquiries seeking comment.
While Florida has a large Cuban population with a relatively direct path to permanent residency, it is also home to nearly one million people of mixed-status households from other nationalities — including Venezuelans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Dominicans — many of whom lack a legal pathway to citizenship.
President Donald Trump celebrated the decision, saying that birthright citizenship was intended for the “babies of slaves” and not “people trying to scam the system.” Gov. Ron DeSantis has previously been in favor of ending birthright citizenship, announcing that he would push for its termination during his presidential campaign.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said Friday in a statement that the Supreme Court’s ruling was “what our country needed.”
“Taking away nationwide power from rogue district courts is a huge win for the rule of law and the American people,” Uthmeier said.
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Officials, community leaders and advocates from South Florida expressed dismay and horror at the Supreme Court’s decision and slammed Trump’s executive order as an unconstitutional proclamation that leaves certain people’s rights unprotected depending on where they live.
READ MORE: Supreme Court allows Trump to end birthright citizenship in some parts of the country
Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said that the decision was not “just about court processes, but about who gets to be Americans.” She said the 14th Amendment creates “stability, prevents statelessness, and fosters national unity.
“This isn’t governance — it’s an attempt to rule by decree, to fracture our national identity, to reshape who is an American to their warped vision, and to roll back hard-fought constitutional protections,” Bozzetto added.
Adelys Ferro, Miami-based executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, called the ruling a “politically biased decision toward granting the Trump administration what it was asking for.”
For Ferro, the decision will be enormously damaging to Hispanic communities in Florida. “It’s a horrific situation,” she said, describing the ruling as effectively putting the 14th Amendment on hold, which she called “terrifying.”
Thomas Kennedy, an immigrant advocate with the Florida Immigration Coalition, said he worries about the ruling’s potential impact on Florida’s immigrant communities.
“We’ll end up with a whole generation of second-class, non-citizens being born in Florida if this ruling stands,” Kennedy said. “The Supreme Court is creating a caste system in the U.S.”
Legal experts noted that for now, nothing will immediately change because the executive order doesn’t take effect right away, and legal actions against the executive order are certain to be filed in federal courts. The plaintiffs could also be deemed a national class-action group, if a federal judge in a lower court certifies that, extending protections across the country. An amended complaint requesting that classification has already been filed in Maryland.
“This is precisely the situation that the 14th Amendment was meant to avoid. Whether you have full rights as a U.S. citizen depends on where you were born,” said Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the American Immigration Council. “We fought a civil war over this, and then all the trials and tribulations afterwards. We thought we had left this all behind in our past.”
William Powell, senior counsel at the Institute for Advocacy and Protection, said at a press conference Friday held by the groups challenging Trump on the order that the decision to limit the availability of universal injunctions will be detrimental to the rule of law, but that the Supreme Court had not questioned the lower court’s ruling that Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional or suggested it was legal.
“We don’t think this order should go into effect or will go into effect as to anyone, anywhere, ever,” Powell said. “And it’s our intention to continue to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Miami Herald Staff Writer Churchill Ndonwie contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 27, 2025 at 1:43 PM.
