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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an extraordinary amicus brief on Thursday urging the Supreme Court to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for the children of many immigrants. The conference, which represents active Catholic bishops in the United States, frequently supports conservative positions at the court: In the past, it has argued against same-sex marriage, transgender rights, LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws, reproductive freedom, restrictions on school prayer, and medical aid in dying. But the conference is staunchly opposed to Trump’s draconian immigration policies. And its brief in support of birthright citizenship is a searing, full-throated rebuke of the president’s executive order as an affront to the God-given equality of all people.

On this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode of Amicus, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the remarkable filing and its potential impact on the Supreme Court, which hears the challenge to Trump’s order on April 1. A preview of their conversation, below, has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: This is a scorcher of a brief that holds nothing back. It says that the conference’s opposition to stripping folks of birthright citizenship “is motivated by their firmly held belief that each person is endowed by God with an inherent dignity that confers certain universal, inviolable, and inalienable........

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