A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday declared former President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship unconstitutional, affirming a lower court’s decision to halt the directive nationwide.
Trump’s controversial order—which sought to deny automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas—has been locked in legal disputes for months and is currently paused by a federal court.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some lower courts may have overstepped their bounds by issuing nationwide injunctions against several Trump-era policies, including the birthright citizenship order.
Despite that, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Seattle district judge’s nationwide injunction, rejecting claims of judicial overreach. “We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction to give the States complete relief,” Judge Ronald Gould stated in the ruling.
Gould argued that limiting the injunction to individual states would have created confusion and made enforcement nearly impossible, particularly if individuals moved across state lines where rules might differ.
The appeals court also agreed with the district court’s assessment that Trump’s order contradicted the U.S. 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.
The executive order attempted a sweeping reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment by declaring that children born in the U.S. to non-citizens wouldn’t automatically be granted citizenship—a move that sparked widespread backlash from legal experts and immigrant rights advocates.
Although the Supreme Court, currently having a 6-3 conservative majority, sidestepped ruling on the constitutionality of the order, it did weigh in on the broader issue of nationwide injunctions. Still, Trump heralded the decision as a “giant win.”
The Court also left open a legal pathway for challenging such executive orders through class-action lawsuits. Earlier this month, a federal judge granted class-action status to all potentially affected children and temporarily blocked the order as litigation proceeds.
Judge blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship ban nationwide
A federal judge in New Hampshire had, in early July, issued a nationwide block on US President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, dealing a significant blow to the policy.
US District Judge Joseph Laplante, ruling from the bench on Thursday, granted a request from immigration rights lawyers to certify a nationwide class comprising children, both born and unborn, who would be stripped of their citizenship under Trump’s order. He simultaneously issued a preliminary injunction, indefinitely halting enforcement of the policy.
“This preliminary injunction is not a close call,” Laplante said during the hearing. “The deprivation of US citizenship and an abrupt change of longstanding policy, that’s irreparable harm. US citizenship is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”
