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A U.S. appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s bid to end automatic birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants born in the nation.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court judge’s order halting the president’s executive order, which he signed when he took office a month ago.
A panel of judges upheld an order blocking Trump from curtailing automatic birthright citizenship nationwide as part of his hardline crackdown on immigration and illegal border crossings.
This is the first time an appellate court has addressed Trump’s executive order regarding constitutionally protected birthright citizenship, the fate of which may now ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump’s Department of Justice had asked the appellate court to issue an emergency stay, which would largely pause the decision while it pursued an appeal.
The Justice Department argued that Seattle-based U.S. District Judge John Coughenour went too far by issuing a nationwide injunction at the behest of four Democratic-led states.
The 9th Circuit panel consists of a Trump appointee, a Jimmy Carter appointee, and a George W. Bush appointee.
They judges ruled that the Trump administration had failed to show that there was an emergency in which the court would have to intervene. Instead, a closer review of the case will move forward in the court, with arguments slated for June.
Democratic attorneys general of four states led by Washington brought the case that went before the judges.
“This is not a case about immigration,” they argued. “It is about citizenship rights that the Fourteenth Amendment and federal statute intentionally and explicitly place beyond the President’s authority to condition or deny.”
Judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire have also blocked the executive order separately. The Justice Department is also pursuing appeals in the Maryland and Massachusetts cases.
Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in the White House on January 20, instructed U.S. agencies to deny citizenship recognition for children born in the United States after Tuesday this week if neither their mother nor father is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
In filings, the Justice Department argues that ending automatic birthright citizenship is “an integral part of President Trump’s broader effort to repair the United States’ immigration system and to address the ongoing crisis at the southern border.”
Currently, anyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. This was dictated first by a federal statute and then by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868.
