On the very day Donald Trump became president again, he signed an executive order prospectively eliminating birthright citizenship for children born to aliens unlawfully present in the United States.

Immediately, lawsuits were filed in a half-dozen jurisdictions across the country challenging this order.

The groups bringing these suits claim the order disrupts long-standing legal norms governing citizenship. Yet, in fact, Trump’s contention — that birthright citizenship is not possessed by children of illegal aliens under the “correct interpretation of the law” — is exactly right.

Birthright citizenship is conventionally understood to apply to any child born in the United States, regardless of the immigration status of that child’s parents. This view is based on the common law principle of jus soli (“right of soil”), which is said to be incorporated in the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This understanding of the Citizenship Clause, however, despite its prevalence in academia and political commentary, is based on a mistaken and incomplete reading of controlling Supreme Court precedent.

In fact, birthright citizenship, as provided for in the Citizenship Clause, as that clause has been authoritatively construed by the Supreme Court, is possessed only by children born in the United States to at least one parent who is lawfully residing in the United States. …

As it is currently applied, birthright citizenship not only returns us to a feudal past, but also undermines the ability of the people of the United States to set forth standards by which children born to foreign nationals may become citizens. It incentivizes “birth tourism” and mass illegal immigration, both of which treat the United States as a provider of material benefits rather than a political community towards which one owes allegiance and duties. Unlike illegal aliens and temporary guests, lawful permanent residents are incentivized to invest in their political community, and to adopt the customs and civic responsibilities of that community. Their children’s subsequent inheritance of those responsibilities further facilitates assimilation and social cohesion.

The rule of Wong Kim Ark v. United States reflects the compact approach to self-government inherent in the founding principles of this country while serving the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment. Applying the rule as it was intended to be understood would remedy the above-mentioned policy deficiencies of an over-expansive view of birthright citizenship without the need to amend the Constitution, and efficiently resolve the flurry of lawsuits against President Trump’s executive order.