On Wednesday, April 1, President Trump was in attendance at the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a case that has challenged Trump’s birthright citizenship Executive Order from January 2025. He is the first sitting President to attend Supreme Court oral arguments.
Entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” this Executive Order sought to eliminate citizenship claims for individuals that fell under one of the following categories: “the mother was unlawfully present in the U.S. and the father was neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident (LPR), or the mother’s presence in the U.S. was lawful but temporary and the father was not a U.S. citizen or LPR.” The case emerges after several families filed suit, claiming that the order is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and 8 U.S.C. § 1401.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued on behalf of the Trump administration, while Cecillia Wang, ACLU National Legal Director, argued on behalf of the class of families who filed suit. Sauer placed heavy emphasis on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” claiming that the parents’ domicile is a requisite for being subject to such jurisdiction, while Wang argued that both the Fourteenth Amendment and 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a) protect the birthright citizenship of anyone born on American soil.
The justices were not easy on either advocate, as Supreme Court oral arguments generally go, but they were particularly sharp to Sauer, questioning whether his evidence was even supportive of the case he was trying to make in the first place. Particularly, Gorsuch, Jackson and Roberts were most skeptical of his framework.
Trump’s attendance at this argument feels incredibly symbolic to the current political climate of the U.S. He sat and listened to his own Solicitor General get slapped around by several of the justices he himself appointed, which speaks to his rapidly shifting popularity. He has continued to get away with a number of unconstitutional actions over the years, almost being sheltered from the consequences of his own actions by traveling away to Mar-a-Lago or committing a series of outrageous acts to take attention away from the last. Whether he chose to attend for the sake of intimidating the justices or for the sake of emphasizing how important this Executive Order is for the Trump administration, the result seemed ultimately masochistic.
I must wonder whether this seemingly recent shift in skepticism of the Trump administration symbolizes a larger shift in how the Supreme Court will approach cases on executive power. While the decision and opinions of this case will likely not be released for another two months, many Supreme Court scholars are highly doubtful that it will land in the Trump administration’s favor, and the questions posed by the justices in this oral argument were only further supportive of that idea.
It is also important to consider whether hostility from the justices would have been so apparent if Trump’s agenda did not cause such widespread chaos at the domestic and foreign levels. Would the Supreme Court have let him continue to get away with his unconstitutionality if the outcomes of his disastrous policies were not widely publicized? If there weren’t such loud condemnation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would the Supreme Court have pushed back so aggressively against Trump in oral argument, especially after seemingly being on his side since his 2025 inauguration?
When asking these questions, I must attribute credit for this growing opposition to Trump to the individuals in Minneapolis, in Chicago, in Los Angeles— to the individuals who fought for their neighbors when their government terrorized them. Blowing whistles and being on standby when ICE was nearby was a safety measure, but it was also a political statement—a movement. It is the actions of these people who stepped in and safeguarded their own communities that I believe uncovered the horrific chaos being inflicted by the Trump administration. They put government officials, including SCOTUS, in a position where if they do not act, they would be blatantly responsible for every life lost, every city burned, every family torn apart under these policies. ICE protestors ensured that there was no “I didn’t realize how bad it was” to hide behind.
Listening to these oral arguments made it apparent that public-led momentum can contribute to eventual political change. I hope we can maintain this momentum.