The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked one of President Donald Trump’s most sweeping attempts to redefine who qualifies as an American citizen. Ruling 6-3, the justices struck down his executive order and held that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born on U.S. soil. 

But Trump’s broader effort — to restrict immigration, close legal pathways and accelerate deportations — extends far beyond the 14th Amendment.

Since his first run for president, Trump has sought to end birthright citizenship, calling it the “biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, has described birthright citizenship as a threat to American identity. 

“Birthright citizenship means the children of illegal aliens can vote to tax your children and seize their inheritance,” Miller posted recently on social media. The children he was describing are, under the ruling reaffirmed Tuesday, U.S. citizens. 

Miller has extended that argument to legal immigrants and their children. “Not only is the first generation unsuccessful,” he said, citing Somali immigrants as an example, “you see persistent issues in every subsequent generation.” He has described such immigrants as showing “consistent failures to assimilate” — a characterization that is at odds with research on immigrant economic mobility across generations. 

Responding to the ruling Tuesday, White House border czar Tom Homan said the administration would be “doubling down on birthright tourism investigations” and “those organizations that do that,” but did not name any organizations. Pressed by MS NOW for numbers on how many cases of alleged birth tourism are occurring in the U.S., Homan said, “I don’t have any numbers,” then said it was in the thousands, according to data from when he was Immigration and Customs Enforcement director eight years ago.

Even as the court blocked the bid to end birthright citizenship — an idea considered fringe just a decade ago — Trump, Miller and Homan have expanded the administration’s immigration crackdown well beyond people in the country illegally, and beyond those with criminal records.

Here is how they have done it.

Stripping legal status, ignoring protections

The administration has moved to revoke legal or protected status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security has terminated or moved to terminate Temporary Protected Status for nationals of 13 countries, affecting hundreds of thousands of people living in the United States legally. A recent Supreme Court order allowing the administration to end protections for Haitians and Syrians could clear the way to revoke TPS for more nationalities, with El Salvador and Ukraine potentially next. 

Meanwhile, the State Department has revoked roughly 100,000 student visas. The administration has also detained, and in some cases deported, so-called Dreamers who had maintained valid status. In other cases, recipients and their lawyers say, it has slowed renewals in ways that have cost people their work permits and left them vulnerable to deportation.