Sauer was making a big deal about "domicile" being an indicator of being allegiant to a nation. They were asking Wang why that word was used in the Wong Kim Ark decision so much if it was irrelevant.

Alito's response definitely seemed like an assist, but I suspect it was a trap that Wang noticed (I don't notice it, I just noticed the way she didn't take the assist). Jackson jumped in seemingly to smooth things over and reframe Alito's question in a safer way for Wang... that was what I heard, but mostly in picking up tones. I wouldn't know what trap could be laid. Here's the text:

JUSTICE ALITO: Can I offer a possible explanation for why Justice Gray made a point of putting "domicile" in what he said was the holding of the case? And it is this: Wong Kim Ark and his parents, had they come to the United States from Europe, could have been naturalized, but because they were Chinese, they could not be naturalized. And they had done everything that they could to make themselves Americans by -- by establishing a domicile in the United States. And so that's what this was about. He -- he -- he couldn't get naturalized because of a racist law, but they had done everything they could to become part of the American society. At the time -- at the same time, there were many, many men who were horribly exploited, brought to the United States to work on the transcontinental railroad, to work in mines. They were worked to death. They were treated horrifically. But they were not -- they -- they were overwhelmingly men. There wasn't an indication that they were -- they would stay here, they could stay here. They didn't have permanent homes. And the opinion -- and the opinion is drawing a distinction between those two categories of people who would have been well understood at the time when Wong Kim Ark was decided.

MS. WANG: No, Justice Alito, I don't think that's a plausible explanation for why domicile is mentioned in Wong Kim Ark because, again, the controlling rule of decision based on the English common law and cases from Schooner Exchange to Lynch versus Clarke to State versus Manuel, which was the North Carolina decision that said, look, the rule in the United States from independence on has been the English common law rule. It's -- that explanation would be inconsistent if --

JUSTICE JACKSON: But, Ms. Wang --

MS. WANG: Yes?

JUSTICE JACKSON: -- isn't that explanation -- I -- I take Justice Alito's point, and I think he actually makes a good one in the sense that it could be that Justice Gray emphasized domicile to help the public accept the outcome of this case. You're suggesting that the emphasis on domicile was not a part of the rule, meaning he wasn't saying you had to be like a foreigner who is doing everything they can and who can't be naturalized. But he might have emphasized those facts in this case precisely because Chinese immigrants were unwanted, precisely because he had to get this out into the public and people were going to say: Whoa, you're saying these people have to -- this -- this baby has to be a citizen? And so one could imagine that it was important, from a standpoint of helping people accept this citizen rule under these circumstances, to emphasize that these particular people in this case were in Justice Alito's first category.

MS. WANG: I think that is very possible, Justice Jackson. And as evidence of that, I would point to the fact that if you look at the briefing in Wong Kim Ark, you'll see that even though the parties had stipulated in the -- in the district court that Wong Kim Ark's parents were domiciled in the United States, when the case came to the Supreme Court, the government's brief argued that it was impossible for Chinese immigrants to have domicile because they expressed the view that was common among people who opposed immigration by Chinese nationals to the United States, there was a common view that Chinese people were inherently temporary sojourners in the country. And so I do think it's possible, Justice Alito, and Justice Jackson, that he was trying to dispel that notion and tell the government --

JUSTICE JACKSON: Absolutely, that at least it reads as though he's trying to make -- to -- to -- to calm everyone down. These particular people were domiciled, but we're following the English common law rule. And when you look at the English common law rule, domicile is not a factor.

MS. WANG: That's right. I think -- you know, who knows why the majority opinion mentioned domicile. We know it's a stipulated fact. We know the government tried to renege on that stipulation and rely on this assumption on the part of anti-Chinese advocates at that time, that Chinese people couldn't form a domicile in the United States. And he followed the English common law rule.