President Donald Trump plans to attend Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on his bid to limit birthright citizenship, according to the White House schedule provided for the day and Trump’s comments to reporters. The president is set to sit in on the oral arguments in a case stemming from a lower-court ruling that had struck down the executive order at the center of the dispute.
The White House schedule included a stop at the Supreme Court, where justices will hear Trump’s appeal of a decision that invalidated an order limiting citizenship for children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. Trump signed the executive order on the first day of his second term, framing it as a change to the legal understanding that children born on American soil are citizens, subject to narrow exceptions recognized in earlier practice.
The dispute, as outlined in the executive order, points to a longstanding view tied to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and to federal law and policy dating back to 1940. Trump’s order represented what the Associated Press described as an about-face from that long-standing framework, moving to deny citizenship to children born to certain categories of parents present in the country temporarily or without legal status.
Trump’s plan emerged publicly as reporters asked about the case during a Tuesday briefing in the Oval Office. When asked if he was going to attend the arguments, Trump said, “I’m going,” then indicated he planned to be there in person when he was asked again, replying, “I think so, I do believe.”
The episode adds to a pattern in which Trump has shown intermittent interest in appearing at the Supreme Court during high-profile legal fights, including one he discussed last year. The Associated Press reported that Trump said he badly wanted to attend a hearing on whether he overstepped federal law with his sweeping tariffs, but that he decided against it because he said it would have been a distraction.
In his comments Tuesday, Trump also discussed the makeup of the court, describing it as largely partisan and identifying the justices appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents. He said, “I love a few of them,” and “I don’t like some others,” when asked whom he would be listening to most closely.
The citizenship restrictions are part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, but they have not yet taken effect anywhere in the country because multiple courts have blocked the executive order. A Supreme Court ruling is expected by early summer, according to the Associated Press report, after Wednesday’s arguments.
The Associated Press also placed Trump’s attendance in historical context, noting that while other presidents have dealt directly with the court, it did not appear to have been done while in office. It cited that Richard Nixon argued a case between his time as vice president and president, and that William Howard Taft served as chief justice after his presidency.
Trump has previously attended Supreme Court ceremonies connected to his appointments. During his first term, he went to the Supreme Court for the swearing-in of two justices he appointed—Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. A ceremony for his third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, was delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Trump, who was no longer in office at that time, did not attend.