Expert flags ‘disappointing’ questions from justices in Trump birthright citizenship case

By Fox News · Fox News

President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants appears to be in jeopardy following Supreme Court oral arguments on Wednesday. Supreme Court justices pursued what Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, described as a "disappointing" line of questioning. Liberal and conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of Trump’s order, which the president has argued is necessary to end a "magnet" for illegal immigration and "birth tourism," in which foreign nationals travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children gain citizenship. Lawyers for the Trump administration argued that the 14th Amendment’s stipulation that individuals must be subject to U.S. jurisdiction to be American citizens means children of illegal immigrants are excluded from automatic citizenship. The administration pointed to "striking" numbers of illegal immigrants abusing current law through a type of birth tourism. Meanwhile, opposing lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union argued that Supreme Court precedent, particularly the Wong Kim Ark case, supports a broader interpretation that all those born on U.S. soil are automatic citizens. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Swearer said that while the oral arguments went "a little bit better than anticipated" for the administration in some regards, the day was a mixed bag for the government. SAUER CITES ‘STRIKING’ FIGURES ON SECRETIVE BIRTH TOURISM IN HIGH-STAKES SCOTUS CASE "Most people understood coming into this, and I suspect even the government understood coming into this, that this was probably going to be a bit of an uphill battle," Swearer said. She said conservative and liberal justices seemed hesitant about how the government would apply Trump’s order. Swearer said, "We did see a lot of those types of questions," adding, "I’m not sure they are actually that important to the overall doctrinal questions of, ‘What does the 14th Amendment…