Seven Supreme Court justices appeared to support birthright citizenship during oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara on Wednesday, with only Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito showing sympathy for the government's position that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the 14th Amendment excludes children of undocumented immigrants. [1]

SCOTUSblog's post-argument analysis found the pressure data "most consistent with a 7-2 or 6-3 outcome favoring the challengers." [1] Every lower court had already blocked the executive order.

The spectacle may outlast the substance. Trump became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments, arriving to sit in the front row and departing halfway through. [2] The gesture was designed to signal the personal stakes. It may instead have broadcast the scale of the coming defeat.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed the government's lawyer on whether the administration's reading of the citizenship clause would have excluded children born to enslaved people before the Civil War, a line of questioning that drew the argument back to the amendment's original purpose. [3] Brett Kavanaugh's questions suggested he saw no statutory basis for the executive order, while Neil Gorsuch appeared firmly aligned with the challengers on originalist grounds. [1]

A decision is expected by late June. The case will likely produce a sweeping reaffirmation of constitutional text that has meant the same thing since 1868.

-- MAYA CALLOWAY, New York