An appeals court upheld an order on Wednesday, February 20, blocking President Donald Trump from ending birthright citizenship for children whose parents are in the United States illegally. The emergency request was filed by the Justice Department in an attempt to clear the path for Trump's executive order, which has been blocked by judges in lower district courts since it was issued in January.
Trump's order attempts to redefine the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which decrees that anyone born on US soil is a citizen. Among the most controversial of Trump's executive orders, it claims the right does not apply to the children of anyone other than permanent residents and citizens.
The request was denied by a panel of three judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who were nominated by Trump and former presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. "Here, the Government has not shown that it is entitled to immediate relief," judge Danielle Forrest, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, said in the ruling.
She said the "sole basis" for seeking the emergency request was that the district court had "stymied the implementation of an Executive Branch policy... nationwide for almost three weeks." She said "deciding important substantive issues on one week's notice turns our usual decision-making process on its head" and that the circumstances did not "dictate that we must."
Trump's executive order was due to come into effect by Tuesday but was first blocked temporarily by a federal judge in January and the time-frame has since been extended. His orders have faced growing pushback from the courts, with about a dozen injunctions issued so far from among some 40 lawsuits.
The Trump administration made its first appeal to the Supreme Court in a separate case on Sunday to allow him to fire the head of a whistleblower protection agency. The Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices, is primed to play a significant role in what some experts suggest is a looming constitutional crisis as the president tests the limits of his executive power and the judiciary pushes back.