'Justices Express Skepticism Over Birthright Citizenship Case They Never Should Have Taken in the First Place'

(TPM) "The conservative justices on Wednesday were, at times, appropriately skeptical of the Trump administration’s patched-together attempt to undermine birthright citizenship, a bedrock of American life for well over a century."

"That they treated his theory as legitimate at all is a sign of how amenable they are to President Trump’s whims, given that his argument directly contradicts Supreme Court precedent and subsequent congressional action."

"Still, all but Justice Samuel Alito seemed to find it tough to swallow a new conception of citizenship that would exclude the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visitors based on their insufficient loyalty to the United States and lack of a 'domicile' in its borders. The administration claims that these groups are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States, and therefore are not included in the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause."

“ 'You obviously put a lot of weight on ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ but the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky: children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships,' Chief Justice John Roberts said to Solicitor General John Sauer. 'Then you expand it to a whole class of illegal aliens here in the country — I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples.' "

Continued at link:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-oral-argument-trump