NYT opinion piece concedes 'Trump might have a case on birthright citizenship'

The headline firmly stated, "Trump might have a case on birthright citizenship." 

"Has a citizen of another country who violated the laws of this country to gain entry and unlawfully remain here pledged obedience to the laws in exchange for the protection and benefit of those laws?" the professors asked. 

"Clearly, the parents are not enemies in the sense of an invading army, but they did not come in amity," Barnett and Wurman wrote, referencing legal definitions of citizenship. "They gave no obedience or allegiance to the country when they entered - one cannot give allegiance and promise to be bound by the laws through an act of defiance of those laws." 

"Such persons can even be summarily removed from the country without judicial procedures of the sort that would protect citizens," the professors continued. "If the allegiance-for-protection view informed the original meaning of the text, then they and their children are therefore not under the protection or 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the nation in the relevant sense." 

Barnett and Wurman also addressed the executive order's "exclusion of children born to mothers who are 'lawful but temporary' residents is a more complicated question not addressed here." 

Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.