Last week, the Supreme Court held oral arguments in Trump v. CASA, Inc., a case that stems from President Donald Trump’s January executive order on birthright citizenship. At this point in the litigation, the court isn’t addressing the constitutionality of the order itself, but instead will resolve an important procedural question over the power of lower federal court judges to issue “nationwide” injunctions.
Nonetheless, during the arguments, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made an assertion about the executive order that grabbed national attention. In an exchange with U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer, Sotomayor insisted the president’s order violates “not just one, but by my count, four established Supreme Court precedents.”
She specifically named the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which she claimed held that “your parents’ fealty to a…
