Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The US Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in perhaps the most controversial case this term, the one involving birthright citizenship. On the first day of a second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to not recognize the citizenship of babies born in the United States if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
The decision could impact about a quarter of a million babies born in the United States each year. It could also affect millions of others. Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, April 2nd, 2026.
Chapter 2: Who is Barbara and what is her role in the birthright citizenship case?
Joining me to break down Wednesday's arguments is USA Today Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Grappe. Welcome back, Maureen. It's always good to have you here. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me. The Birthright Citizenship case is more formally known as Trump versus Barbara. Tell me more about Barbara, please.
Barbara is a pseudonym for one of the parents who are challenging Trump's executive order on behalf of a child.
Chapter 3: What does the 14th Amendment say about citizenship?
This particular person, this mother, she came to the U.S. from Honduras. She is seeking asylum in the U.S. because of gang activity in Honduras. And while that application is pending, she said she and her family have become part of the community in New Hampshire. And she is the lead name on this class action lawsuit that involves many other parents as well.
Maureen, this case has to do with the 14th Amendment, a law that was ratified more than 150 years ago. Tell me what this amendment says and what motivated its passage.
The 14th Amendment is one of three amendments that were adopted after the Civil War. And this particular one, it overturned the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision on that African Americans could not be citizens. So the citizenship clause made clear that formerly enslaved black people and their children are citizens, but the clause is not limited to the status of black people.
And in fact, it uses the words all persons when it says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.
Let's get to the arguments. What did the lawyers arguing against Trump's executive order say on Wednesday?
They argue that Trump's executive order violates that citizenship clause that I just read and that it also violates a previous Supreme Court decision about that clause. And they say it violates a federal citizenship law passed in the 1950s that includes similar language.
And what did the lawyers representing Trump argue?
Basically, they say that this citizenship clause has long been misinterpreted. They focus on the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And they say that term means more than just if you're here, you have to follow the laws.
They say it implies this level of allegiance that people who are in this country temporarily or who entered illegally, they can't meet that higher bar of allegiance so their children should not become automatic citizens.
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Chapter 4: What arguments were made against Trump's executive order?
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.
217 members of Congress filed an amicus brief friendly note to the court on this case. What did they say in their brief, Maureen?
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.
Notably, President Trump attended the arguments on Wednesday, the first time in history that a sitting president did so. How did he react during arguments? Was his presence acknowledged by the court or the lawyers who were presenting?
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.
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Chapter 5: What arguments did Trump's lawyers present in court?
Based on the questions from the justices following the arguments, did you get any sense of which way they're leaning?
Yeah, so predicting how they are going to rule is always tricky and they may not know themselves and they will sit down soon to informally vote on how they want to rule on this. And then someone will start to write the opinion, which will be circulated amongst each other. And until that opinion is final, justices can change their views.
Going into this argument, there is an expectation that this would not get a very good reception at the court. None of the lower courts that have looked at this issue have sided with Trump.
But even though we heard a lot of skepticism and got a lot of tough questions for the Justice Department on Wednesday, they weren't completely dismissive of the administration's arguments, and they had some tough questions for the challengers too. So some of the key conservative justices, it did seem like that they were more likely to rule against the president.
But we won't know that until the decision comes out.
As I mentioned, this executive order, if SCOTUS deems it legal, would affect millions of people. Who are we talking about here? There are a few different categories, right?
right so there are the children of people who are undocumented there they enter the country and either without permission or stayed here without permission that's the biggest category but then there are also many people who are here on a temporary basis who would be affected that includes people who are here on work visas on student visas those who were allowed admission through humanitarian programs or because they are seeking asylum and if
Trump's executive order goes into effect, their children would not have automatic citizenship.
Marina, if that happens, if Trump's order goes into effect, isn't it possible that some babies could be born stateless? What's the solution for those children?
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Chapter 6: What impact could the Supreme Court's decision have on birthright citizenship?
I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA Today's The Excerpt. Draft season means millions of fans are refreshing their team's pages on USA Today Network right now, returning to sports content they trust again and again. During that surge, the brand customers see most is the one they remember.
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