President Donald Trump will win many court cases defending the executive orders from his first week, but the one ending birthright citizenship won’t be one of them. He is going to lose that case, and he will lose it badly, which is a shame because birthright citizenship is, at best, a distraction in the implementation of an effective immigration system, and its absence would undermine the possibility of agreement on other, more necessary reforms.

Section One of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, begins, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”