WASHINGTON — Hundreds of people, including President Donald Trump, packed inside and demonstrated outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard two hours of arguments over who gets to be an American citizen in a closely watched case with Missouri ties.
Within the first few minutes of his opening argument, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer invoked the name of Dred Scott, a man enslaved in Missouri, who sued for his freedom in the St. Louis federal courthouse, arguing that the people who claimed ownership of him had moved him to Illinois, a state where slavery was illegal. The case ended in an 1857 Supreme Court decision declaring that Scott was not a citizen and invalidating parts of the Missouri Compromise, setting the stage for the Civil War.
Sauer, a St. Louis native who was Trump’s personal lawyer before becoming the Justice Department’s chief litigator, acknowledged the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, was designed to overturn the court’s infamous decision in the Dred Scott case. Since then, the amendment has been widely interpreted to grant citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., with a few limited exceptions, such as children of diplomats.
But on the first day of his second term, Trump called that understanding into question when he signed an executive order that said individuals born in the United States are not U.S. citizens at birth if their parents lack sufficient legal status. The order was set to take effect on Feb. 20, 2025, but has faced numerous legal challenges as families of children born after that date allege the order illegally strips their children of citizenship guaranteed to them by the 14th Amendment.
Trump’s decision to attend the Supreme Court argument — a first for a sitting U.S. president — underscored how much he wants to win the case.
“We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!’” Trump posted on Truth Social after leaving the court.
In fact, 32 of the world’s 193 countries grant citizenship as a birthright, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
A silence came over the room as Trump arrived about 10 minutes before the argument started. He sat in the front row wearing a black suit with a red tie, but left the court minutes after Sauer concluded his argument and as Cecillia Wang, the lawyer for the ACLU and immigrant advocate groups, was beginning her argument.
Some Missouri Republican lawmakers have taken an active role in the case. Rep. Bob Onder, whose House district includes Columbia south of Broadway, signed a friend-of-the-court brief advocating an end to birthright citizenship along with more than two dozen other members of Congress.
U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., partnered with U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, to file a separate friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the 14th Amendment does not apply to children of illegal immigrants because they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Schmitt held a hearing in March regarding birthright citizenship, where many of the same arguments that Trump’s lawyers used were discussed.
During Wednesday’s arguments, Schmitt live-tweeted his reactions and takeaways on X. He said that Sauer, who served as Missouri’s solicitor general when Schmitt was the state’s attorney general, “put on a masterclass.”
But, Schmitt agreed with many nonpartisan observers, adding: “This one is going to be close.”
Both Sauer and Wang faced tough questions from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, leading to speculation they will be the deciding votes in the case.
Against birthright citizenship
During the hour and 15 minutes he was allotted, Sauer discussed why the 14th Amendment should be altered for today’s reality.
“We are in a new world,” Sauer said. “Eight billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who is a U.S. citizen.”
Sauer used most of his time to argue that people can’t be meaningfully connected to the country if they are just passing through.
“If you are talking about an alien, if they are just temporarily passing through, no, they don’t have allegiance, but if they made it a permanent home, they become part of our political community, they are now akin to citizens,” he said.
Preserving the 14th Amendment
Wang argued for 50 minutes on the opposite side.
“Everyone born here is a citizen alike,” Wang said. “That rule was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to put it out of the reach of any government official to destroy it.”
Wang bolstered her argument with a landmark statute and a landmark Supreme Court decision.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first federal law that stated every person born in the United States, no matter their background, was a U.S. citizen. Two years after that act came into effect, the 14th Amendment was adopted and ratified, granting all people born in the United States equal protection and due process under the law.
In 1898, a U.S.-born man, Wong Kim Ark, returning from China was unable to reenter California because his parents weren’t citizens of the United States. His case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which affirmed that children born in the United States to noncitizen parents were considered U.S. citizens under the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.
Demonstrators gather
Outside the court, speakers shared messages of solidarity across identity lines. Demonstrators held signs, listened to speeches and occasionally joined chants in favor of birthright citizenship and against the president. One group of about 20 people sat under the shade of a tree listening to the arguments on a large white speaker as the court streamed them live.
Among the speakers were leaders from a variety of institutions, including members of immigrant rights groups and the NAACP, as well as public figures, including prolific people like U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and famous restaurateur José Andrés, a naturalized American citizen and advocate for immigrant rights.
“We have to stand together, people,” said DaMareo Cooper, the executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy and one of the event’s emcees. “If you are an immigrant person, if you’re a black person, if you’re a brown person, if you’re an Asian person, if you’re a queer person, if you’re a trans person, if you’re a person in this country who thinks you’re supposed to have basic human rights, I want to hear you say ‘freedom!’”
Several speakers were immigrants from a variety of backgrounds who voiced the concerns held by themselves and their communities that the attacks on birthright citizenship were among many efforts by the Trump administration to question if immigrants belong in the country.
“We’re talking about real people, real lives,” said Shana Khader, deputy legal director of We Are CASA. “At the core of this case is a question of who’s allowed to be a citizen. The law is clear, it makes it clear that anyone born in the U.S., we are all American.”
After the arguments were finished, Wang and other members of the ACLU expressed confidence that the court will rule in its favor.
“We all are Americans alike, and that is the principle that we stood up for together, all of us, in the Supreme Court of the United States today,” Wang said. “We could not be more confident that despite the policy preferences of the current administration, that this attack on what it means to be American in the most fundamental way, that attack will be turned down.”
ACLU National Executive Director Anthony Romero echoed similar sentiments.
“I’m not one to give predictions when I walk out of this courthouse, but I will predict today that we will win this case definitively.”
A decision in the case is expected before the Supreme Court’s term ends on or about July 1.