Topline
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship and deemed it unconstitutional, dealing a further legal blow to the Trump administration on the matter despite a Supreme Court ruling last month that limited the ability of courts to block Trump’s policies nationwide.
President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order was deemed unconstitutional by a ... More
The 2-1 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a nationwide pause on the enforcement of the president’s order granted by a Washington District Court Judge in January.
The court’s majority opinion said: “We conclude that the Executive Order is invalid because it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment's grant of citizenship to 'all persons born in the United States.”
The opinion noted that the district court: “correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional…We fully agree.”
Trump appointee Judge Patrick J. Bumatay issued a partial dissent, arguing that the Democratic-led states that brought the case lacked standing to file the suit; however, he did not address whether the executive order itself was unconstitutional.
This is the first ruling on the matter by a federal appeals court and likely sets up a future hearing by the Supreme Court.
While the Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of the Birthright Citizenship executive order, it handed a major legal victory to Trump last month by limiting lower court judges’ ability to block his policies nationwide. The top court’s ruling was in a case that consolidated multiple lawsuits nationwide against the order, in which the Trump administration had asked the judges to rule on whether federal judges from a single state or region could block the president’s policy from being implemented nationwide. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 along partisan lines and the majority opinion from the court’s conservative justices stated that Courts are not supposed to “exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch.” The liberal judges’ dissenting opinion penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court’s majority ruling disregards “basic principles of equity” and called it an “attack on our system of law.” The dissenting opinion then warned: “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”
Earlier this month, a federal judge in New Hampshire also blocked the executive order from going into effect nationwide. Judge Joseph Laplante's ruling blocked the order, which was set to take effect on July 27, after the Supreme Court’s order overturned previous blocks imposed by lower courts. Laplante’s ruling relied on one of the many carveouts specified by the Supreme Court in its verdict, including one that allowed cases to be brought as class-action lawsuits, thereby blocking the Trump administration from implementing a policy against any specific group. The New Hampshire case was certified as a class action, preventing the implementation of Trump’s order against any child born in the U.S. who could be impacted by it—effectively freezing the policy.
Trump Birthright Citizenship Order Blocked Again—Despite Supreme Court’s Ruling (Forbes)