Sen. Jim Banks plans to introduce legislation this week that would strip birthright citizenship from children born to illegal immigrants and birth tourists on American soil, a direct legislative counter to the Supreme Court ruling that blocked President Trump's executive order on the same issue last month.

The Indiana Republican's bill, called the Citizenship Act, would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to classify people who enter the United States without authorization, or who arrive specifically to give birth, as "invaders" under federal law. Children born to such individuals would no longer automatically receive U.S. citizenship.

Banks told Fox News Digital he intends to file the bill as soon as the Senate opens for business Monday afternoon. The move follows the Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v. Barbara, which dealt a setback to Trump's 2025 executive order declaring illegal immigration across the southern border an "invasion" and denying citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants.

The Kavanaugh roadmap

What makes the Citizenship Act more than a protest vote is its legal architecture. Banks built the bill around a concurrence written by Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the Barbara case. Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment and dissented in part, finding that Trump's executive order did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, but that it did conflict with a federal statute on birthright citizenship passed in the spirit of that amendment.

The distinction matters. Kavanaugh's opinion suggested Congress could amend that statute to create new exceptions. Banks' legislation attempts to do exactly that.

Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, relied on the 1898 precedent U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark to rule against Trump and guarantee citizenship to all children born in the United States and subject to its power. That ruling drew sharp criticism from the right for its broad reading of settled law.

But the original Wong Kim Ark ruling, authored by Justice Horace Gray, an appointee of Republican President Chester Arthur, carved out exceptions. Gray ruled that birthright citizenship did not extend to children of diplomats, "enemies within," or those engaged in hostile occupation of U.S. territories who are not "bound to render obedience to the sovereign [U.S. government] whose domains are being invaded."

Banks' bill seizes on those exceptions. By codifying Trump's executive order, which declared illegal border crossings an "invasion", the Citizenship Act would define unauthorized entrants as falling within the very categories Wong Kim Ark excluded. In effect, the bill tries to use the Court's own reaffirmed precedent against itself.

Sotomayor's concession

The bill also draws on a separate 2025 Supreme Court case, U.S. v. CASA, which also went against Trump. In that ruling, Obama-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor separately confirmed that "children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation" do not qualify for birthright citizenship. She did not, however, take the additional step of classifying illegal immigrants as such "invaders."

That gap is precisely where Banks' legislation steps in. The bill asks Congress to make the classification that the justices would not, declaring by statute that unauthorized entrants meet the threshold of the historical exceptions.

The AP reported that the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling exposed a sharp ideological rift among the justices, with the majority finding that birth on U.S. soil plus being subject to U.S. law is sufficient for citizenship, while dissenters argued parents must have a deeper allegiance to the United States.

That divide mirrors a broader tension on the current Court. Recent dissents by Justices Alito and Thomas have underscored deep disagreements over how far the Court should go in revisiting longstanding interpretations, and how much deference Congress deserves when it acts within its enumerated powers.

Constitutional foundations

The Citizenship Act rests on two constitutional pillars. First, it invokes Article I's grant to Congress of the power to "establish a uniform rule of naturalization." Second, it cites Article IV's requirement that the federal government "protect each [state] against invasion."

Banks' bill also reaches back to James Madison's 1788 analysis, which argued the Constitution vested Congress, not the states, with authority over naturalization through a uniform national rule. The Founding-era citation is meant to reinforce the idea that Congress has broad, original authority to define the terms of citizenship, and that the executive order Trump issued was not an overreach but an underreach, limited by a statute Congress itself can change.

The bill goes further than legal theory. It lays out what it describes as national security dimensions of birth tourism, citing two examples. First, it claims some Mexican nationals view northward migration as a means of reconquering territory the United States won during the 1840s military conflict finalized by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Second, it asserts that Chinese birth tourism is directly encouraged by the Chinese Communist Party.

Neither claim is independently verified within the bill summary as described. But the inclusion signals that Banks intends to frame the legislation not merely as an immigration measure but as a sovereignty question, one that touches foreign influence, territorial integrity, and the exploitation of American law by hostile actors.

Trump's push and the Senate's pace

Banks' move comes after Trump pressed Senate Republicans to pick up the pace. In a June 30 interview with Human Events, Banks recalled that Trump told Senate Republicans they were "not fighting hard enough" on his legislative agenda, including ending birthright citizenship.

That pressure has produced friction between the White House and congressional Republicans who have struggled to match Trump's urgency on issues where the courts have blocked executive action. The birthright citizenship fight is a prime example: Trump acted by executive order, the courts struck it down, and now the legislative branch faces a direct test of whether it will follow through.

Banks framed the stakes in blunt terms.

"The Supreme Court's birthright citizenship decision was an unprecedented assault on American sovereignty, and we must do whatever it takes to save our country."

He added in his statement to Fox News Digital:

"I'm leading the Citizenship Act to reverse the effects of this consequential ruling and ensure the millions of illegal aliens that invaded our country can't continue to exploit our immigration system."

What the bill faces

The Citizenship Act's path through the Senate is anything but certain. The bill would need to survive committee, floor debate, and almost certainly a filibuster, unless Republican leadership finds a way to attach it to a reconciliation vehicle or other must-pass legislation. And even if it passes both chambers, a legal challenge would follow within days.

The central question any court would confront is whether Congress can define unauthorized border crossers as "invaders" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause. Kavanaugh's concurrence opened the door to statutory change, but it did not guarantee that any particular statutory change would survive judicial review.

The broader political dynamics also matter. Tensions between Trump allies and the judiciary have been escalating for months, and the birthright citizenship fight is now the highest-profile arena where those tensions will play out legislatively.

Demonstrators rallied outside the Supreme Court in Washington on April 1, 2026, in support of birthright citizenship, a sign that the political battle over the issue is far from one-sided. But for conservatives who watched the Court sideline Trump's executive order, Banks' bill represents the clearest attempt yet to take the fight to the ground the justices themselves identified: the statute books.

The real test

Whether the Citizenship Act becomes law or dies in committee, its introduction forces a question that Republican voters have been asking since the Barbara ruling came down: If the Supreme Court says the president can't end birthright citizenship alone, will Congress step up?

Banks is betting the answer is yes, or at least that every senator should have to vote on it. The bill is built on the Court's own language, the Court's own exceptions, and the Court's own invitation. If Republicans can't move it forward now, with a roadmap drawn by a Trump-appointed justice, it's fair to ask when they ever will.

Washington has no shortage of politicians who talk tough on immigration and then find reasons to wait. The Citizenship Act is a chance to prove the Senate is something more than a debating society, or to confirm what a lot of voters already suspect.