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* Politics

# Supreme Court Justices express skepticism of Trump's birthright citizenship challenge

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## Video: Supreme Court Justices express skepticism of Trump's birthright citizenship challenge

[Watch (HLS stream): Supreme Court Justices express skepticism of Trump's birthright citizenship challenge](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bZH3FJCA.m3u8) (2:09)

![Supreme Court Justices express skepticism of Trump's birthright citizenship challenge](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bZH3FJCA/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2026-04-02. The Supreme Court seemed poised to reject President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship in a consequential case that was magnified by his unparalleled presence in the courtroom._


---

Apr 2, 2026 1:46 AM UTC

---

## More From This Series

[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

[Judge Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order Nationwide, Reigniting Legal Fight](/video/gquIE2tv/)

### Judge Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order Nationwide, Reigniting Legal Fight

[Demonstrators Gather Outside Supreme Court as Justices Consider Birthright Citizenship Arguments](/video/vA6a54uQ/)

### Demonstrators Gather Outside Supreme Court as Justices Consider Birthright Citizenship Arguments

[Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Executive Order Ending Birthright Citizenship](/video/9dRRcDYq/)

### Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Executive Order Ending Birthright Citizenship

---


## Transcript

The citizenship clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children, whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile here. It did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance. You obviously put a lot of weight on subject to the jurisdiction thereof, but the examples you give to support that strike me as very quirky. You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to a whole class of illegal aliens are here in the country.

I'm not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples you mentioned in your your briefing and also this morning, the problem of birth tourism. Um, do you have any information about how common that is or how significant a problem it is? It's a great question. No one knows for sure. We're in a new world now. Joselito pointed out to where 8 billion people are. One plane ride away from having a a child who's a US citizen. Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution. How much of the debates around the 14th amendment had anything to do with immigration?

How does this work? Are you suggesting that when a baby is born, people have to have documents present documents? Is this happening in the delivery room? How are we determining when or whether a newborn child is a citizen of the United States under your rule? I think that's directly addressed in the SSA guidance that's cited in our brief. What SSA says is there's currently a system where, for example, Social Security numbers are generated based on the birth certificate. They say this can still be for the vast majority of instances, completely transparent. You will still get because transparent.

I'm just talking about the particulars because now you say your rule turns on whether the person intended to stay in the United States. And I think Justice Barrett brought this up. So we bringing pregnant women in for depositions. What what are we doing to figure this out?

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