Appeals court affirms nationwide block on birthright citizenship order

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s order blocking President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order from going into effect nationwide, despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court striking down another nationwide ruling. (Photo by Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  A federal appeals court dealt a setback for President Donald Trump’s offensive to end birthright citizenship, even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the lower courts to avoid overly broad immigration rulings. The decision likely sets the stage for the high court to again hear arguments related to the constitutional right for babies born on U.S. soil.

Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a 2-1 decision late Wednesday declaring Trump’s policy unconstitutional. The ruling upheld a lower court’s nationwide injunction against the controversial order.

The original complaint was brought by Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon over the economic hardship states would bear if birthright citizenship was stripped from the Constitution.

Writing the majority opinion, Judge Ronald M. Gould affirmed the district court rightly made its ruling nationwide, despite the recent Supreme Court decision.

“The district court below concluded that a universal preliminary injunction is necessary to provide the States with complete relief,” Gould wrote. “We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief.”

An injunction covering only the states that challenged the order would be impractical because migrants covered by the order would inevitably move between states, Gould, who was appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, continued, explaining that states would then need to overhaul verification for numerous social safety net programs.

“For that reason, the States would suffer the same irreparable harms under a geographically-limited injunction as they would without an injunction,” he wrote.

Judge Michael D. Hawkins, also a Clinton appointee, joined the majority opinion.

In a dissent, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, appointed to the bench by Trump in 2019, wrote that courts must be “vigilant in enforcing the limits of our jurisdiction and our power to order relief. Otherwise, we risk entangling ourselves in contentious issues not properly before us and overstepping our bounds.”

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond for comment.

Supreme Court ruling

The decision comes less than two weeks after a district judge in New Hampshire issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s policy to end birthright citizenship and granted a class certification to infants who would be affected by the order.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of immigrants whose babies would be affected by the order shortly after the Supreme Court narrowed lower courts’ abilities to impose nationwide orders.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued the 6-3 decision on June 27 after the justices reviewed three cases consolidated into one that brought together plaintiffs from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia and the county and city of San Francisco also joined.

The justices ruled that Trump’s directive to end birthright citizenship can go into effect within 30 days of their ruling in all non-plaintiff states.