By Felicia J. Persaud | NewsAmericasNow.com
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. July 9, 202: US President Donald Trump now says he will ask the Supreme Court to rehear its decision striking down his executive order to end birthright citizenship – a request the justices are almost certain to reject. The last time the court granted a rehearing after deciding an argued case was 1965. It has reversed itself after rehearing exactly once, in a 1956 case, according to Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck.
Trump made the declaration on social media, calling the court’s 6-3 ruling “absolutely insane” and claiming, without evidence cited, that billboards near the southern border were advertising birthright citizenship “to anyone willing to pay.” The claim appeared to reference a Texas hospital that had briefly marketed “birth packages” – materials the hospital says are no longer in use. As of Wednesday evening, no rehearing request had actually been filed.
The Contradiction He Can’t Escape
The renewed push comes barely a week after Trump’s own actions made the stakes of that ruling impossible to ignore. As it was reported last week, Trump personally called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to intervene on behalf of Folarin Balogun, the US striker whose red card threatened to sideline him for the Round of 16 match against Belgium. FIFA suspended enforcement of the ban, Balogun played, and the US lost 4-1 anyway – its worst World Cup margin since 2006.
Balogun is a US citizen for exactly one reason: he was born in New York after his Nigerian mother, living in London, was barred from her return flight because she was too far along in her pregnancy. He is, by definition, the birthright citizen Trump’s executive order was written to stop from existing.
The irony was not lost on observers. As journalist Julia Ioffe put it: “The irony of Trump calling FIFA to overturn a red card for Balogun because he knows the U.S. can’t win without Balogun, who only qualifies for the U.S. team because of birthright citizenship, which Trump just tried to overturn.”
Michelle Lapointe, legal director of the American Immigration Council, was more direct: “Thanks to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Team USA has made it to the Round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup.” She added: “If the Supreme Court had agreed with the Trump administration in its birthright citizenship decision this week, a future Balogun would not be considered a U.S. citizen.”
Asked about the contradiction, White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai dismissed it, saying birthright citizenship was intended for “the babies of freed slaves” and that the administration would “continue to kind of look into this issue based on the law.”
The Attack Went Further, From Trump’s Own Camp
As this outlet reported in a separate commentary last week, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon went beyond irony into open attack, calling Balogun an “anchor baby” on his War Room podcast and declaring, “I’m not sure that he’s an American citizen” – questioning, in the same breath, whether the US and French national teams were even “representative” of their countries.
The moment captured something larger than one red card: a country that wanted Balogun’s speed and his goals badly enough to have its president personally call FIFA, while a prominent voice in that same president’s political orbit questioned whether Balogun belonged to the country at all.
What Happens Now
The Supreme Court is exceptionally unlikely to grant a rehearing. But the fight is clearly not over. Trump has separately urged Congress to legislate around the ruling, incorrectly claiming no constitutional amendment would be required to do so.
For the more than 250,000 children born on US soil each year to non-citizen or temporary-status parents, the practical answer – for now – remains the one Chief Justice Roberts wrote last week: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights… We keep that promise today.”
Whether that promise survives the next round of this fight is very much still in question.
