One of the most controversial of the executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in the hours after being sworn in was his order on birthright citizenship. That order directed federal agencies to stop issuing citizenship documents for children born in the United States unless at least one parent was a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.
As my colleagues and I have long argued, such a move is not only perfectly consistent with the original public meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, but is an important and necessary course-correction in federal immigration policy.
Within a day, however, a number of Democrat-controlled states filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop Trump’s order from going into effect—just one of several similar lawsuits filed by various groups since then. The arguments offered by…
