WASHINGTON D.C. — The Supreme Court spent over two hours hearing arguments on whether President Donald Trump could change the constitutional principle that almost anyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen via an executive order. President Donald Trump was the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court.

Solicitor General John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court that the 14th Amendment applies only to newly freed slaves and their children, not to children born in the United States to aliens temporarily present or to illegal aliens. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1868, provides that anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen.

Conservative Supreme Court justices questioned Cecillia Wang, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, during the oral arguments. Associate Justice Samuel Alito posed a hypothetical about a child born in the United States to undocumented Iranian parents who would have Iranian nationality at birth. "That means that children of Irish and Italian immigrants would also not be citizens," said Cecillia Wang, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, responding during the arguments.

It is estimated that 250,000 babies born in the United States each year would lose birthright citizenship if the court upholds the executive order. Some of those children would become stateless. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 states that a person born in the United States who is "not subject to any foreign power" receives U.S. citizenship.

A majority of American adults support the rule that anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen. "I come out of the court today with the thought of my parents and so many of our parents and ancestors," Wang said after the hearing.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a final decision on the birthright citizenship case in June.