Chief Justice John Roberts signaled Wednesday that he might act as a thorn in President Donald Trump’s side.
During oral arguments over Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship, Roberts pushed back against Solicitor General John Sauer, who made the president’s argument.
Specifically, Roberts sounded skeptical that the Fourteenth Amendment, on which birthright citizenship rests, excludes children of illegal immigrants.
“Based on Chinese media reports,” Sauer said in a clip posted to the social media platform X, “there are 500 — 500 — birth-tourism companies in the People’s Republic of China, whose business is to bring people here to give birth and return to that nation.”
“Having said all that,” Roberts replied, “you do agree that that has no impact on the legal analysis before us?”
Sauer did not agree. Instead, he respectfully cited the late Justice Antonin Scalia in arguing that 19th-century Americans did not foresee such things. In other words, the people who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment did not intend it for the children of illegal immigrants.
“Well, it certainly wasn’t a problem in the 19th century,” Roberts responded.
Hellbound and Down 