On Jan. 20, President Trump signed Executive Order 14160, stating that the federal government will no longer “issue documents recognizing United States citizenship” to children born on American soil to parents who did not lawfully immigrate.

So far, four federal courts have blocked that order on a nationwide basis. The judicial branch’s history of dealing with the privileges of citizenship is complicated, including the suggestion that a president can use the treaty power under Article II of the Constitution to withhold citizenship from any child born on U.S. soil to a non-citizen.

Federal courts have historically reserved for themselves the last constitutional word when it comes to citizenship, for better or worse.

Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), in which the Supreme Court purported to strip Black Americans of citizenship, is today considered perhaps the court’s lowest moment. Another low point was Mackenzie v. Hare (1915), in which the court upheld the Expatriation Act of 1907, automatically stripping citizenship from American women who married non-citizens. That law was fittingly repealed in 1931, partly as a function of women having........

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