In the Trump administration’s arguments defending his order to suspend birthright citizenship, the Justice Department called into question the citizenship of Native Americans born in the United States, citing a 19th-century law that excluded Native Americans from birthright citizenship.

In a case on Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order coming out of Washington, Justice Department attorneys quote the 14th Amendment, which reads that “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,” and hang their one of their arguments on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

“Under the plain terms of the Clause, birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship. The person must also be ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States,” the filing reads.

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