Technology

Trump’s birthright citizenship ban may fail — but the administration already got too far

Published

4 days ago

April 2, 2026

Trump’s birthright citizenship ban may fail — but the administration already got too far

On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a case challenging President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order banning birthright citizenship. Justices seemed skeptical of the administration’s argument, but by taking up birthright citizenship at all, they showed how much ground nativists have gained since Trump’s first term. The 14th Amendment is quite clear: “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.” Trump seeks to overturn this and create a new, effectively stateless American underclass, and he’s gotten alarmingly far.

Hours after being sworn back into office for his second term, Trump issued an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” Under the order, children born to undocumented mothers — or to women in the country on non-immigrant visas — would no longer be citizens upon birth, unless the children’s fathers were citizens or permanent residents. The order’s provisions would take effect 30 days after it was issued. It was immediately challenged in court and several federal injunctions prevented its implementation, meaning birthright citizenship remains the law of the land for now.

Trump’s efforts hinge on the meaning of a specific clause: “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The administration contends that noncitizens and those who don’t have permanent residency are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, since they’re actually loyal to a foreign power. This interpretation would reverse not only centuries of US law but also precedent set by English common law, leaving hundreds of thousands of children without status or stateless upon birth. Karen Tumlin, the director of the Justice Action Center, called the case a “canary in the coalmine for our democracy”: if Trump can end birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen, then no constitutional protection is safe.

All but the most conservative justices seemed unconvinced. Their questions largely focused on two landmark decisions. One was Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 case in which the court decided that enslaved people were not citizens — which the 14th Amendment was ratified partly to overturn. The other was United States v. Wong Kim Ark, an 1898 case in which the court ruled that, despite the Chinese Exclusion Act, the American-born children of Chinese nationals were indeed US citizens.

After Justice Clarence Thomas asked Sauer how the citizenship clause responds to Dred Scott, Sauer acknowledged that the 1857 decision “imposed one of the worst injustices in the history of this court.” But he argued that Congress specifically ratified the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to “newly freed slaves and their children” who, according to Sauer, had “a relationship of domicile” to the United States and no “relationship to any foreign power.”

Nineteenth-century legislators, Sauer argued, couldn’t have foreseen the problem of birth tourism. “There are 500 — 500 — birth tourism companies in the People’s Republic of China whose business is to bring people here to give birth and return to that nation,” Sauer said. The current interpretation of birthright citizenship “could not possibly have been approved by the 19th century framers of this amendment,” he said. “We’re in a new world,” he continued, “where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a US citizen.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was questioning Sauer, appeared unswayed. “It’s a new world,” he agreed, but “it’s the same Constitution.”

“It’s a new world,” Gorsuch said, but “it’s the same Constitution”

Chief Justice John Roberts called Sauer’s examples of existing exceptions — including children of ambassadors or enemies during a hostile invasion — “very quirky” and not necessarily comparable to“a whole class of illegal aliens who are here in the country.” Justice Elena Kagan noted that most of Sauer’s brief focused on people who are temporarily in the country on visas — but Trump’s executive order was clearly intended to restrict immigration, and the president has said so himself.

In 2019, Trump called birthright citizenship a “magnet for illegal immigration.” Last year, presidential adviser Stephen Miller said the US-born children of immigrants are just as much of a problem as the immigrants themselves. “With a lot of these immigrant groups, not only is the first generation unsuccessful,” Miller said in a Fox News interview, citing the Somali-American community, which the administration would soon target in Minneapolis, as an example. “You see persistent issues in every subsequent generation. So you see consistent high rates of welfare use, consistent high rates of criminal activity, consistent failures to assimilate.”

The administration has sought to restrict legal immigration in all its forms: it implemented a steep fee for H-1B work visas, has signaled it may end a work program for international students, and enacted a travel ban on several countries that is even affecting World Cup players. The operation is barefacedly racist. The president famously complained about “all these people from shithole countries” who migrate and expressed his desire to have “more people from Norway.” Last year, he cut the refugee resettlement cap to just 7,500 and prioritized the resettlement of white South Africans. The Department of Homeland Security has linked the “homeland” to a decidedly white vision of Manifest Destiny that, like debates about birthright citizenship, harkens back to the nineteenth century.

Experts are broadly in agreement that most justices weren’t convinced by the administration’s argument, but it’s not clear exactly how the court will rule.

If the court did hand Trump an unexpected victory, a series of grim questions would immediately come into play — starting with when the change kicks in. The order was supposed to be implemented on February 19, 2025, thirty days after Trump signed the order, and would have gone into effect if not for a number of federal injunctions. “If the court sides with Trump, it will have to decide on a date on which to begin applying the president’s interpretation of the 14th amendment,” César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor of civil rights and civil liberties at the Ohio State University College of Law, told The Verge. “Anyone born on or after that date and described in Trump’s order would be treated as a migrant rather than a U.S. citizen.”

Sauer asked the court to apply Trump’s executive order “proactively” and not retroactively, and backdating the change to 2025 would pose a number of problems, calling the citizenship of millions of children into question.

The Trump administration is trying to narrow who counts as an American while simultaneously pushing for policies that prevent noncitizens from participating in public life. The administration has tried to prohibit states from offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who live there, revoked accreditation for training centers that work with noncitizen truckers, and has broadly sought to turn America into a “papers, please” country.

Trump was in the audience during Wednesday’s arguments, making him the first sitting president to attend oral arguments before the Supreme Court. His presence may have intended to intimidate skeptical justices into taking his side. Norman Wong, a direct descendant of Wong Kim Ark, was also outside the courthouse, according to the New York Times. Wong and his family embody the stakes of this case, and he had a message for the justices: “They will be shamed for history if they get this wrong.”

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Gaby Del Valle

Technology

Los Thuthanaka’s Wak’a is a mellower follow-up to last year’s surprise Pitchfork favorite

Published

1 hour ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

Los Thuthanaka’s Wak’a is a mellower follow-up to last year’s surprise Pitchfork favorite

Los Thuthanaka basically came out of nowhere last year to capture Pitchfork’s album of the year with their self-titled debut. Because it wasn’t available on streaming, it largely flew under the radar. I honestly kind of forgot about it until Pitchfork gave it the number one spot in its year-end list. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure how, though. Los Thuthanaka sounds like nothing else. It’s joyous, jagged, and sounds like it’s being blasted out of a broken Bluetooth speaker in your neighbor’s backyard — it’s glorious.

The follow-up EP Wak’a turns down the tempo and smooths some of the sharper edges. It uses the same sound palette of blown-out speakers and sampled traditional Bolivian instruments that’s equal parts pluderphonics and psychedelic rock. But Wak’a is just as indebted to shoegaze. Its chord progressions and melodies are more wistful, the guitars drenched in fuzz and reverb. There are horns and keys that peek through the mix like half-forgotten memories of other songs.

Siblings Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton deliver an aural interpretation of the Aymara creation legend of the first sunrise over the course of three songs, lasting just 18 and a half minutes. If you buy Wak’a on Bandcamp, the download includes a PDF created in collaboration with Ch’ama Native Americas that tells the story in the Aymara language.

Fittingly, the EP feels like a world emerging from darkness. The opening track “Quta (capo-kullawada)” starts with a low synth drone and chirping crickets before an Eno-esque guitar melody and loping distorted drum line kick in. “Wara Wara (capo-kullawada)” is beautiful, but also terrifying. The wall of sound is oppressive and startling in the way you might expect the first burning rays of sunlight would be to people who had existed in perpetual night beforehand. It eventually reaches the sort of cathartic apex that many musicians spend their whole careers chasing as horns, keyboards, growling vocals, and asymmetrical guitars all collide in a chaotic inferno.

By comparison, “Ay Kawkinpachasa? (capo-kullawada)” is a soothing comedown, despite its undeniably dense arrangement where individual instruments are increasingly difficult to pick out. There are what sound like accordion, fiddle, and keys all fighting for the same sonic real estate, and stuttering guitars eventually take over just in time for the EP to end.

For those who found the group’s self-titled record a touch too abrasive, this EP offers a more approachable introduction to their unique sound. Los Thuthunaka’s Wak’a is available now on Bandcamp.

Technology

Android flaw lets hackers unlock phones in under a minute

Published

2 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

Android flaw lets hackers unlock phones in under a minute

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Your phone lock screen is supposed to be your last line of defense. If your device gets lost or stolen, that PIN or passcode should keep strangers out of your photos, messages and financial apps. But researchers have found a serious flaw that can break through those protections on certain Android phones in less than a minute.

Once exploited, attackers can recover your phone’s PIN, unlock encrypted storage and even extract sensitive data such as cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases. Security researchers estimate that roughly one in four Android phones could be affected, particularly budget phones.

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ANDROID FIXES 129 SECURITY FLAWS IN MAJOR PHONE UPDATE

Google’s March Android security update fixes 129 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day flaw already exploited in targeted attacks. (Firdous Nazir/NurPhoto)

All about the Android hacking flaw

A newly disclosed vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20435 in the National Vulnerability Database, affects some Android phones powered by MediaTek, a major smartphone chip maker based in Taiwan that competes with companies like Qualcomm. These phones use a security component called Trustonic’s Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which is designed to keep sensitive data, such as encryption keys, protected from the rest of the system.

It stores cryptographic keys that help keep your device encrypted and secure, even if someone tries to tamper with it. However, security analyses of the vulnerability indicate that these protections may be bypassed on affected devices.

By connecting a phone to a computer using a USB cable, an attacker with physical access may be able to exploit the flaw during the early boot process, potentially exposing sensitive data before full security protections are enforced. Think of it like accessing the master key before the safe door even closes. Once attackers gain access to these low-level components, they may be able to access encrypted storage without needing your PIN.

In a worst-case scenario, this type of access could allow attackers to extract highly sensitive information, including personal photos, stored passwords, private messages, financial data, and crypto wallet credentials. If seed phrases for crypto wallets are exposed, attackers could drain funds permanently.

What are Android makers doing about this

There’s limited action manufacturers can take on their own since the issue originates at the processor level, which is manufactured by MediaTek. The company says it has released a firmware patch addressing the vulnerability. However, the update must still be distributed by individual phone manufacturers through security updates. Depending on the device and whether it is still supported, that update could arrive quickly or not at all.

The good thing is that this attack requires physical access to the phone and a USB connection to a computer. That means it cannot be done remotely over the internet. However, if your phone is stolen, briefly confiscated, or even taken during a repair, the attacker could potentially extract sensitive information.

If you’re not sure whether this vulnerability affects your mobile device, you can look up your phone on a platform like GSMArena or your vendor’s website to see which SoC it uses, then cross-check it with MediaTek’s March security bulletin under CVE-2026-20435. You can log onto corp.mediatek.com/product-security-bulletin/March-2026 to review the list of affected chipsets and confirm whether your device may be at risk.

CyberGuy reached out to MediaTek for comment, but did not hear back before our deadline.

NEW ANDROID ATTACK TRICKS YOU INTO GIVING DANGEROUS PERMISSIONS

A new Android banking trojan called Sturnus can take over your screen, steal your banking credentials and even read encrypted chats from apps you trust. (Delmaine Donson/Getty Images)

How to tell if your phone is affected

So how do you know if your phone is actually at risk? Not every Android phone is vulnerable. The issue primarily affects devices that use certain MediaTek processors. Here’s how to check your phone:

1) Find your phone model

Go to Settings > About phone and look for your exact model name.

2) Look up your processor (chip)

Search your phone model on a site like GSMArena or your manufacturer’s website to find the processor (also called the SoC).

3) Check if it uses MediaTek

If your phone uses a MediaTek chip, it may be affected. Devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon or Google Tensor chips are not part of this specific issue.

4) Install the latest security updates immediately

Check your phone’s system update settings and install any available updates from your manufacturer. Go to Settings > Software update and install any available updates. MediaTek has already released a fix, but phone makers must distribute it. Installing updates quickly ensures you receive the firmware patch if your device manufacturer has released it.

7 ways you can protect your phone from getting hacked

If your phone uses one of the affected chips, a few simple precautions can help reduce the chances of someone accessing your data if the device ever falls into the wrong hands.

1) Install strong antivirus protection

A security app cannot fix this processor-level flaw. However, it can still help protect your phone from other threats that often follow stolen or compromised devices. It will not stop this specific exploit, but it can detect malicious apps, spyware, and suspicious activity that attackers may install after gaining access. That extra layer of monitoring can help stop additional data theft if your device ever falls into the wrong hands. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com

2) Avoid keeping sensitive information on your phone

If you store things like cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases, recovery codes, or sensitive documents in notes apps or screenshots, consider moving them to a secure offline location. If someone extracts your phone’s data through this vulnerability, that information could be exposed.

3) Keep physical control of your phone

This exploit requires someone to physically connect your phone to a computer. Do not leave your device unattended in public places, and be cautious when handing it to repair shops or unknown technicians. Physical access dramatically increases the risk.

4) Use strong screen locks and auto-lock settings

While the vulnerability bypasses encryption on affected devices, strong lock settings still protect against many other threats. Use a longer PIN or passcode instead of simple patterns, and enable automatic locking after short periods of inactivity.

5) Protect accounts with two-factor authentication

Even if attackers gain access to data on your phone, two-factor authentication (2FA) can stop them from logging into your online accounts. Enable it for email, banking apps, cloud storage, and social media wherever possible.

6) Use a password manager

A password manager stores your login credentials in a secure, encrypted vault instead of leaving them scattered across apps and notes. If someone compromises your device, the password manager still protects your accounts with strong encryption, forcing attackers to break through another security layer before they can access your logins. Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at Cyberguy.com

7) Enable USB restricted mode (if available)

Some Android devices limit USB data access when locked. Turning on this setting can reduce the risk of unauthorized data extraction through a wired connection, especially in situations where someone briefly gains physical access to your phone. On Samsung phones running the latest software:

Settings may vary slightly depending on your Samsung model and software version.

Go to Settings

Tap Lock screen

Then, tap Secure lock settings

Enter your current PIN, then tap Continue

Enable “Lock network and security” (or a similarly named option) to help block USB data access while your device is locked.

ZeroDayRAT spyware can secretly access messages, camera feeds and banking apps on infected iPhone and Android devices. (Stefan Sauer/picture alliance)

Kurt’s key takeaway

This vulnerability exposes a deeper issue with the Android ecosystem. Even when chipmakers release a fix, millions of phones depend on manufacturers to deliver updates that may never arrive, especially for cheaper devices that lose support quickly. We often assume our lock screen and encryption will protect our data if a phone is lost or stolen. However, incidents like this show that protection is only as strong as the update policies behind it. When devices stop receiving security patches, those protections quietly weaken over time.

Should phone manufacturers be required to guarantee security updates for several years if their devices contain critical encryption vulnerabilities? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Buy two Nintendo Switch games, get $30 off at Target

Published

13 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

Buy two Nintendo Switch games, get off at Target

Target is offering a great deal to some Target Circle members that knocks $30 off the cost of two Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 games. The sale is happening for the rest of the day, expiring at 2:59AM ET on April 5th. If you sign in with the free-to-join membership, you might be able to add two eligible games to your cart, then watch the prices fall at checkout.

There are 224 eligible games (some physical, some digital), and many of Nintendo’s biggest hits from the past year and beyond are here, including Switch 2-exclusive games like Donkey Kong Bananza, Kirby Air Riders, Mario Kart World, Mario Tennis Fever, and more (I didn’t see Pokémon Pokopia in the list, though).

This deal is worth hopping on whether you intend to gift these games, or just get them for yourself. Discounts on Nintendo-published games are rare, and it’s quite a nice perk that Target Circle members have in getting to choose the games they want to save on.

While each of the games that I mentioned ship on cartridges that don’t require a bunch of your console’s internal storage (just enough for save data), there are some Switch 2 games that ship on Game Key Cards. Those cartridges, once inserted into the console, simply grant you the ability to download a copy from the Nintendo eShop onto your console. Game sizes varies, but you may want to pick up a microSD Express card to add more storage on top of the Switch 2’s 256GB built-in SSD. This 256GB Samsung model is $59 at Amazon.