Carole Levine March 31, 2026
I write about the courts a lot. Even as a non-lawyer, I have dug deeply into the influence of our complicated and complex judicial system on the working of our government at all levels – local, state, and national. ot a day goes by when some court, in some part of this nation, makes a decision that will impact what we do. What is determined in one court decision, influences the decisions made by judges in other courts. You can think of it as setting up dominos in a complicated pattern and setting just one domino in motion… and then watching all of them fall. Today, it seems, the dominos are falling as court decision after court decision set the directions for our nation. For the most part, these decisions adhere to the Constitution, but it seems the court to watch is our Supreme Court.
The people’s trust in the courts, especially in our Supreme Court, is eroding. According to an NBC News poll fielded in late February and early March showed that confidence in the Supreme Court is at its lowest point since the outlet started polling on the topic in 2000. Just 22% of registered voters today say they have a “great deal” (7%) or “quite a bit” (15%) of confidence in the Supreme Court – compared to 52% when the NBC polling began. This kind of drop in trust puts the work of our court system on shaky ground when so many key issues are being decided by our justice system.
But it is not just the courts that are losing public trust and confidence. As Sarah Isgur and David French noted during their conversation about the NBC News poll on the Advisory Opinions podcast. “There are very few institutions that have not had this downward trend,” French said. Americans’ trust of its institutions is falling and falling fast. It seems we no longer feel comfortable turning to our schools, our churches, our statehouses, our courts and other organizations for advice and direction. Institutions like Congress and the Presidency no longer carry the weight and confidence of the public as they have in the past.”
Gallup polling shows that Americans’ trust in most institutions – from houses of worship to media organizations to Congress – is plummeting. For example, in 2002, 58% of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency. In 2025, just 30% said the same. Over the same time period, confidence in Congress fell from 29% to 10%. National leadership during this time period shifted between Democrats and Republicans, so we cannot point fingers at one political party or another.
It seems that the Justices of the Supreme Court may be aware of this “slippage” in public support and confidence. In recent weeks, more of them have been appearing in public speaking engagements, talking about their work. Will this make the public trust them more? Only time will tell.
With some blockbuster cases yet to be heard by the Supreme Court this session, and opinions on key cases yet to be issued, a great deal is at stake. Not the least among them is the Birthright Citizenship case to be heard this week. On Wednesday, April 1, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments over the legality and constitutionality of Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the United States. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship will certainly draw a great deal of attention. It is already drawing a great deal of angst among those who may have to deal with what implementing it would have to do, both government officials who will have to interpret this decision and those whose path to citizenship in the US may become a more difficult path.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked a “series of nuts-and-bolts questions” about how the order would affect the work of hospitals, state governments, and other institutions. Now, “[a]s the Supreme Court prepares to consider the merits of Trump’s executive order … most of the same practical questions Kavanaugh raised a year ago remain unanswered,” according to CNN. For one thing, it’s unclear if the government has the resources to “run checks on the parents of more than 3.6 million babies born in the United States each year.” And even if it does, such checks may produce incorrect results if one or both of a baby’s parents legally immigrated to the U.S. because “the Social Security Administration itself has acknowledged for years that potentially millions of its immigration records are inaccurate.” Clearly, this issue is complicated.
When Solicitor General John Sauer argues this case, Trump v. Barbara, before the Supreme Court on April 1st, he will be arguing against history. No court has sided with the Trump administration on that question thus far. No district court, no appeals court, no judicial body. In Trump’s first year back, the conservative justices blocked “universal injunctions” in cases about the birthright citizenship executive order, but the opinion from Justice Amy Coney Barrett made clear the decision was only about the universal injunction remedy — not the merits of Trump’s order.
Saturday was the 128th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, where — at the time of the racist, xenophobic Chinese Exclusion Act — the Supreme Court nonetheless held that the Fourteenth Amendment prevented the governmental effort to bar Kim Wong Ark from returning to the country. That was so because he was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the U.S. — notwithstanding his parents having been citizens of China.
In a lengthy opinion by then-justice Horace Gray, he concluded for the 6-2 court:
The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject” ….
The opinion has stood for 128 years — based as it was on a long history that preceded it — and has threaded itself into and throughout American law and the fundamental understanding of what it means to be an American. This case will be an opportunity to affirm that understanding… or to re-write it. And many of us will wait, with bated breath, for that decision.
On Wednesday, April 1, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments over the legality and constitutionality of Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship in the United States. To listen to the oral arguments, go to: www.supremecourt.gov and click on “oral arguments”. The case will be heard at 9:00 am (Central).
