President Donald Trump is absolutely right on the policy and the interpretation of the 14th Amendment — the children of illegal aliens should not automatically become U.S. citizens merely by virtue of the place of their birth. Maybe that’s why he became the first president to sit in on arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday. However, the president is almost certainly not going to prevail in Trump v. Barbara.

On his first day back in office last year, Trump issued Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” to set a new determination — or, rather, correct the wrong interpretation and practice — regarding citizenship and the 14th Amendment. We’ve written extensively about this interpretation and policy, going as far back as 2010.

The framers of the 14th Amendment had no intention to pave the way for a woman to illegally cross our border and give birth to an automatic citizen. Such a policy is insane.

Yet the legal practice of the last 128 years has gradually devolved into exactly that scenario. Even Solicitor General John Sauer admitted in his brief that this “misreading took hold by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration.” Time doesn’t make all things right, but it won’t be easy to undo that long history of practice either.

The question is one of emphasis. The 14th Amendment reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Proponents of birthright citizenship for illegals point to “all persons born.” Opponents note that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is critical for context. Illegal aliens are, by definition, not “subject” to U.S. jurisdiction because they are not here legally in the first place.

Georgetown constitutional scholar Randy Barnett expertly explains in The Wall Street Journal that the framers of the 14th Amendment told us what they meant by “jurisdiction” — “not owing allegiance to anybody else” and “not owing allegiance to any foreign power.”

That seems pretty cut-and-dried from a legal standpoint. Constitutional law should not be settled by the misinterpretation of others. We would not enjoy many rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights if that were the case.

All that said, it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what five Supreme Court justices think.

Unfortunately, they seemed skeptical of Team Trump’s legal case. Even Justice Samuel Alito didn’t seem persuaded by the jurisdiction argument, saying, “‘Subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ is the puzzle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery.” Still, he noted that a person cannot be legally domiciled in America when they are not legally in America.

Chief Justice John Roberts called some of the historical examples cited by the administration “very quirky.” He looked at the wording for exclusions and wondered about where Team Trump ended up: “You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to the whole class of illegal aliens who are here in the country. I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples.”

He also specifically rejected one of Sauer’s points: “It’s a new world where eight billion people are a plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S. citizen.” Roberts countered, “It’s a new world; it’s the same Constitution.”

That’s correct — and interpretation still matters.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh cited federal statutes passed by Congress in 1940 and 1952 that codified the language of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. He seemed to think that Congress’s misinterpretation then should guide the Court now.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who, along with the other two left-wing justices, is a sure “no” vote, pointed to the obviously relevant precedent in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. That 1898 Supreme Court ruling determined that Wong, the child of Chinese immigrants legally domiciled in the U.S., was a citizen by birth. “You are asking us to overrule Wong Kim Ark?” Sotomayor asked Sauer. No, immigration law was entirely different then.

Bringing her usual stellar wit to bear, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked, “Are we bringing pregnant women for depositions?” Um, no.

“Your view of birthright citizenship turns on what the status of the parents is, not the child,” she said to Sauer. “Help us understand why we wouldn’t see a mention of parents in the text of this Amendment.”

Sauer responded, “I think it’s well understood that children — newborns cannot form domiciles.”

Justice Clarence Thomas was the only one who seemed to fully grasp the post-Civil War context of the 14th Amendment. “How much of the debates around the 14th Amendment had anything to do with immigration?” Thomas asked. The purpose of the amendment, he noted, was to grant citizenship to blacks, including freed slaves.

Overall, the Trump administration faced a lot of skepticism. The ruling likely won’t come until June. The conventional wisdom is foolish. It’s time for the justices to correct the record.

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