Maureen Groppe

whether there are any good statistics on how often this occurs, because this has been one of the president's lead arguments for why his executive order is needed.

He's talked about many people coming to this country just to have babies here and the security risks that that poses.

The Solicitor General acknowledged that there aren't good figures on how often this happens.

And the Chief Justice followed up to basically say, but you agree with me, right, that we're not supposed to consider policy decisions like that, just the legal issues.

And that question about whether policy factors should be a consideration was also raised by another of the conservative justices whose vote could be key to this decision.

That's Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

And he made the same point when talking about the administration's point that the United States is fairly unique.

There are other countries that have birthright citizenship, but it's the minority.

And Justice Kavanaugh said, well, you know, you raised that point, but that's a policy issue.

And, you know, we're supposed to be focused on legal issues.

Yeah, there were very many amicus briefs filed in this case.

This case generated among the most, if not the most, this term.

More of the briefs cited against Trump than with him.

And the brief you're referring to was filed by Democratic members of Congress.

There were some Republican members of Congress who filed briefs supporting Trump, but not as many Republicans waited on this as did Democrats in Congress.

My colleague, Carissa Waddock, she was there in the courtroom just to keep an eye on that very thing.

And she said that the president was a quiet presence in the courtroom.

She said that there were some stifled gasps when he walked in, but other than that, his attendance was barely acknowledged by lawyers or the justices in the courtroom on Wednesday.

He did not end up staying for the full two hours.

He left the courtroom shortly after the justices had finished questioning the Justice Department attorney.