Critics and supporters of President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship often focus on the order’s barring of automatic citizenship to children born to individuals unlawfully present in the United States. In this column, I would instead like to focus on the order’s barring of such citizenship to children born to individuals lawfully but transiently present in the United States, because the order’s treatment of those children brings the dispute into sharp focus. One side argues that the 14th Amendment effectively codifies the English common law of subjectship to declare that the children of foreign visitors are birthright citizens. The other side argues that the 14th Amendment instead codifies an American rule of declaring as citizens those who have chosen to make this country their home. The latter view is the better one.

A Second Opinion is a recurring series by Haley Proctor on the Second Amendment and constitutional litigation.

Last Monday, the Supreme Court heard argument in United States v. Hemani. In that case, Ali Danial Hemani argues that the Second Amendment forbids his prosecution for possessing a firearm as “an unlawful user of” marijuana because disarming people for mere drug use is inconsistent with “the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

SCOTUSblog is excited to announce the addition of podcasts Amarica’s Constitution and Divided Argument to its podcast lineup, joining Advisory Opinions. While both podcasts will maintain their editorial and creative independence, their inclusion in the SCOTUSblog universe continues an increase in our coverage of everything SCOTUS (and SCOTUS-related). 

The hosts of each podcast will also appear in crossover episodes and provide running commentary during SCOTUSblog’s live blogs and coverage of the most important cases.

In this jam-packed episode, the hosts of all three podcasts discuss the current term and the future of originalism.

Brothers in Law is a recurring series by brothers Akhil and Vikram Amar, with special emphasis on measuring what the Supreme Court says against what the Constitution itself says. For more content from Akhil and Vikram, please see Akhil’s free weekly podcast, “Amarica’s Constitution,” Vikram’s regular columns on Justia, and Akhil’s new book, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920.

Elephants don’t hide in mouseholes. Dogs bark when something odd is afoot. Human beings (even members of Congress, sometimes) say what they mean. These common-sense mammalian maxims inform standard legal interpretation. (The preceding links are to opinions authored by Justices Antonin Scalia and Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts, respectively.)

Updated on March 9 at 5:14 p.m.

The Supreme Court added just one case – a technical dispute over the interaction between two federal environmental laws – to its docket for the 2026-27 term. The justices on Monday morning released a list of orders from their private conference last week in which they granted review in Department of the Air Force v. Prutehi Guahan, but did not act on a variety of other high-profile cases that they considered last week, including a request from Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, to clear the way for a lower court to throw out his conviction for contempt of Congress.