In a major blow to President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, the First Circuit Court of Appeals flatly rejected the administration’s attempt to enforce his executive order ending birthright citizenship.
The three-judge panel unanimously refused to lift a lower court injunction, meaning the order remains blocked and federal officials are barred from enforcing the order while appeals continue.
Chief Judge David Barron, appointed by former President Barack Obama, writing for the court and joined by Judges Julie Rikelman and Seth Aframe, stressed that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment leaves no room for Trump’s interpretation. The court’s opinion was clear that Trump’s order, which denies citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents are undocumented or on temporary visas, directly conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment.
“Under both the Citizenship Clause and § 1401(a), such persons are citizens at birth,” the court ruled. “We thus conclude that the plaintiffs are exceedingly likely to succeed in showing that the Executive Order conflicts with both the Citizenship Clause and § 1401(a).”
Section 1401(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act codifies birthright citizenship into federal law.
Multiple courts have already blocked Trump’s order as unconstitutional.
The Ninth Circuit, in a decision this summer, affirmed that a president “was not granted the power to modify or change any clause of the United States Constitution” and agreed with a district court that denying citizenship to people born in the U.S. is “unconstitutional.” While in New Hampshire, a federal court certified a nationwide class action and barred enforcement, protecting “the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil.”
Trump is now pinning his hopes on the Supreme Court, where his Justice Department petitioned the justices last week to overturn these lower court decisions and greenlight his order.
With Friday’s First Circuit ruling, the legal consensus that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil and no president can order it away is only growing stronger.
