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US APPEALS COURT INDICATES IT MIGHT DECLARE TRUMP’S BIRTHRIGHT
CITIZENSHIP ORDER UNCONSTITUTIONAL
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Reuters
August 1, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Judges express deep skepticism about a key piece of the US
president’s hardline immigration agenda _
A woman who is pregnant attends a protest in support of birthright
citizenship, outside of the supreme court in Washington on 15 May
2025., Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Donald Trump’s
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birthright citizenship appeared on Friday to be headed toward being
declared unconstitutional
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a second federal appeals court, as judges expressed deep skepticism
about a key piece of the US president’s hardline immigration
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A three-judge panel of the Boston-based first US circuit court of
appeals sharply questioned a lawyer with the federal justice
department as to why they should overturn two lower-court judges who
blocked the order from taking effect.
Those lower-court judges include one in Boston who last week
reaffirmed his prior decision to block
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order’s enforcement nationally, even after the US supreme court
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the power of judges to broadly enjoin that and other policies.
The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals last week
became the first federal appeals court to hold Trump’s order as
unconstitutional. Its ultimate fate will probably be determined by the
supreme court.
Eric McArthur, a justice department attorney, said on Friday that the
citizenship clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment, which
was ratified in 1868 after the US civil war, rightly extended
citizenship to the children of newly freed enslaved Black people.
“It did not extend birthright citizenship as a matter of
constitutional right” to the children of people in the US without
documentation, he said.
But the judges questioned how that argument was consistent with the
supreme court’s 1898 ruling interpreting the clause in United States
v Wong Kim Ark, long understood as guaranteeing American citizenship
to children born in the US to non-citizen parents.
“We have an opinion by the supreme court that we aren’t free to
disregard,” said David Barron, the chief US circuit judge who like
his two colleagues was appointed by a Democratic president.
Trump’s executive order, issued on the Republican’s first day back
in the Oval Office on 20 January, directs agencies to refuse to
recognize the citizenship of US-born children who do not have at least
one parent who is a US citizen or lawful permanent resident, also
known as a “green card” holder.
Every court to consider the order’s merits has declared it
unconstitutional, including the three judges who halted the order’s
enforcement nationally. Those judges included Leo Sorokin, a US
district judge in Boston, who ruled in favor of 18 Democratic-led
states and the District of Columbia, who had swiftly challenged
Trump’s policy in court.
“The supreme court has repeatedly recognized children born to
individuals who are here unlawfully or who are here on a temporary
basis are nonetheless birthright citizens,” Shankar Duraiswamy, a
lawyer for New Jersey, argued on Friday.
The 6-3 conservative majority US supreme court on 27 June sided with
the administration in the litigation by restricting the ability of
judges to issue so-called universal injunctions and directing lower
courts that had blocked Trump’s policy nationally to reconsider the
scope of their orders.
But the ruling contained exceptions, allowing federal judges in
Massachusetts and New Hampshire and the ninth circuit to issue new
decisions stopping Trump’s order from taking effect nationally.
The rulings on appeal to the first circuit were issued by Sorokin and
the New Hampshire judge, who originally issued a narrow injunction but
more recently issued a new decision in a recently filed class action
blocking Trump’s order nationwide.
Separately, in an immigration-related ruling on Friday, US district
Judge Jia Cobb in Washington DC blocked the Trump administration
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fast-tracking the deportation of potentially hundreds of thousands of
immigrants who were paroled into the country under humanitarian
programs during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Cobb said it served the public interest to put on hold the Department
of Homeland Security’s expedited removals for those who entered with
temporary parole rather than cause irreparable harm to immigrants by
allowing them.
But the ruling contained exceptions, allowing federal judges in
Massachusetts and New Hampshire and the ninth circuit to issue new
decisions stopping Trump’s order from taking effect nationally.
The rulings on appeal to the first circuit were issued by Sorokin and
the New Hampshire judge, who originally issued a narrow injunction but
more recently issued a new decision in a recently filed class action
blocking Trump’s order nationwide.
Separately, in an immigration-related ruling on Friday, US district
Judge Jia Cobb in Washington DC blocked the Trump administration
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fast-tracking the deportation of potentially hundreds of thousands of
immigrants who were paroled into the country under humanitarian
programs during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Cobb said it served the public interest to put on hold the Department
of Homeland Security’s expedited removals for those who entered with
temporary parole rather than cause irreparable harm to immigrants by
allowing them.
_About GUARDIAN U.S. Covering American and international news for an
online, global audience._
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and other award-winning work including, the NSA revelations
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Counted
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