The US Supreme Court had a busy day yesterday, as it prepares to wind down for a long and leisurely summer break. Among its mixed bag of decisions was one particularly important one: a 6-3 decision to strike down Trump's attempts to end "birthright citizenship", the right of children physically born in the USA - even to undocumented immigrants, tourists, and people on short-term work or study visas - to have US citizenship.
This was a big deal for Trump. His executive order on this issue was one of the very first things he did on taking power. He even attended the Supreme Court's oral arguments in person, the first time a sitting president has ever done so, his intention presumably being to stare down the judges to make sure they voted with him. In the end, though, the court voted against him in one of the few checks to his many illegal attempts to re-write American law.
Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, considering how clear the wording of the American Constitution is on the matter, and the century-plus of corroborating case law and legal precedent, is that three of the Court's most conservative judges - let's name names: Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas - still managed to justify dissenting against the decision. A fourth, Brett Cavanaugh, decided to prevaricate and knit-pick, concluding that Trump's order was not unconstitutional but did still violate immigration law. The other two conservatives on the Court (John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett's), who have in the past been guilty of voting ideologically, voted according to the clear legal principles this time, siding with the three Democrats on the Court.
Legal scholars are at a loss to understand how, and on what legal grounds, the three conservatives could vote to allow Trump to force through this clearly unconstitutional measure. But it just shows the hold Trump still has over them, even if his hold over some of the others appears to be weakening.