Nina Totenberg

Now the Supreme Court will decide.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

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Even in periods of great hostility to immigrants, the notion of birthright citizenship has remained so entrenched that during World War II, when Japanese enemy aliens were imprisoned in U.S.

detention camps, their newborn children were automatically granted American citizenship.

President Trump, however, has long maintained that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution does not confer automatic citizenship.

And so on day one of his second presidential term, he issued an executive order that bars citizenship for babies born to parents who enter the country illegally or who are here legally while they live and work on temporary visas.

To date, every judge to have ruled in the case has barred Trump's order from going into effect.

Now the Supreme Court will decide.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Birthright citizenship didn't make it into the Constitution until after the Civil War, when Congress and more than three-quarters of the states approved a constitutional amendment that defined citizenship in the broadest terms.

It says, quote,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.

President Trump, however, has long maintained that the Constitution does not authorize birthright citizenship.

And on the first day of his second term, he issued an executive order barring citizenship for babies born in the U.S.

whose parents entered the country illegally.

or who are living and working here legally on a temporary visa.