A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.
CBS News reported that the latest decision from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals follows months of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents through executive action.
How did the 9th Circuit judges rule in their decision?
“We conclude that the Executive Order is invalid because it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment’s grant of citizenship to ‘all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” the judges wrote in Wednesday’s ruling.
This seems to marks the first time an appellate court has ruled on the merits of Trump’s policy and its adherence to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The court upheld a June ruling by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, a President Ronald Reagan appointee in Seattle, which blocked the order and found that the administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship was driven by political motives, per CBS News.
The 2-1 ruling was written by Judge Ronald Gould and joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, both appointed by President Bill Clinton. Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, partly dissented. In June, Blavity reported that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling sent the birthright citizenship issue back to the lower courts, but blocked federal judges from granting a nationwide injunction on Trump’s policies.
The Appellate justices found one legal avenue for a nationwide injunction
In response to that decision, the 9th Circuit judges determined that only one legal avenue remained unaddressed by the justices, allowing them to rule in favor of several states: Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon. The states argued that a nationwide order was necessary to prevent problems in which birthright citizenship would apply only in parts of the country, per The Associated Press.
“We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief,” Hawkins and Gould wrote.
Bumatay dissented in part, arguing the states lacked legal rights or standing to sue: “We should approach any request for universal relief with good faith skepticism, mindful that the invocation of ‘complete relief’ isn’t a backdoor to universal injunctions,” he wrote.
What does the 14th Amendment say about birthright citizenship?
According to the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship refers to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The states also cited the United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco, was considered a U.S. citizen despite his parents being undocumented.
Trump signed his executive order to end birthright citizenship in January, which was one of dozens of orders that he signed at the start of his second term. He argued that children born on U.S. soil to undocumented parents should not automatically become American citizens.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson spoke out about the 9th Circuit’s ruling to Newsweek: “The Ninth Circuit misinterpreted the purpose and the text of the 14th Amendment. We look forward to being vindicated on appeal.”
