A United States appeal court on Wednesday ruled that President Donald Trump’s directive to restrict birthright citizenship was unconstitutional, upholding an earlier decision by a lower court that had blocked the policy nationwide.
Trump’s order, which sought to limit the automatic citizenship granted to children born on US soil, has been locked in months of legal wrangling and remains suspended under a federal court injunction while multiple cases proceed.
The ruling comes in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last month, which held that individual judges had likely overstepped their authority by issuing sweeping nationwide injunctions against several Trump-era policies — including the controversial attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Several district judges had blocked Trump’s attempt to end the longstanding rule, guaranteed in the US Constitution, that anyone born on US soil is automatically an American citizen.
But the Ninth District Court of Appeals ruled that an injunction issued by a district judge based in Seattle was not a case of judicial overreach.
“We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief,” Judge Ronald Gould wrote.
According to Gould’s ruling, limiting an injunction to the state level would be as ineffective as not blocking the order at all, because of complications that could arise if people move between states with different citizenship rules.
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The appeals court also concluded that Trump’s birthright order went against the wording of the US Constitution.
“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,” Gould wrote.
Trump’s executive order decrees that children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become citizens — a radical reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
The current Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, avoided ruling last month on the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order and only addressed the issue of nationwide injunctions, which was nevertheless claimed by Trump as a giant win.
The Supreme Court also left open the possibility that executive orders could be blocked via broad class-action lawsuits against the government.
A federal judge earlier this month granted class-action status to any child who would potentially be denied citizenship under Trump’s order, and issued a preliminary halt to it as legal proceedings carry on.