Appeals Court Affirms Block on Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order, Citing Unconstitutionality

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled that former President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. This decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower-court ruling that had previously blocked the order’s nationwide enforcement.

The ruling marks a significant judicial pronouncement on a contentious immigration policy from the Trump administration. The court affirmed that the executive order’s interpretation, which sought to deny citizenship to children born in the United States based on their parents’ immigration status, is fundamentally unconstitutional.

This decision keeps in place the block on the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce a policy that would have denied citizenship to children born to individuals who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. The 2-1 majority opinion stated, “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.”

The case was brought by several states, including Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon, who argued for a nationwide injunction to prevent widespread issues if birthright citizenship were applied inconsistently across the country. While the Supreme Court has since restricted the power of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions, the 9th Circuit found this case fell under an exception, granting the states complete relief.

The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens. Justice Department attorneys under the Trump administration had argued that the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” did not automatically confer citizenship based solely on birth location. However, the states countered that this argument disregarded the plain language of the clause and a landmark 1898 Supreme Court case affirming birthright citizenship for a child born in the U.S. to Chinese parents.

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