The Trump administration’s attempts to end birthright citizenship received a stinging rebuke Friday in a decision by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A three-judge panel on the Boston-based court unanimously ruled against President Donald Trump’s executive order that attempted to end the practice of people being automatically declared U.S. citizens if they were born on American soil.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
In his ruling, Chief Judge David Barron cited the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which says: “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 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 after the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.
Trump’s order, issued on his first day back in office on Jan. 20, directs agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children without at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also known as a “green card” holder.
This is the not the first time the Trump administration’s attempts to end birthright citizenship were defeated in court. Another appeals court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, similarly upheld in July a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s order from taking effect on the grounds that it violated the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.
“The Government now asks us to reverse the preliminary injunctions in these cases. We see no reason to do so,” Barron wrote in his 100-page ruling.
“But the length of our analysis should not be mistaken for a sign that the fundamental question that these cases raise about the scope of birthright citizenship is a difficult one. It is not, which may explain why it has been more than a century since a branch of our government has made as concerted an effort as the Executive Branch now makes to deny Americans their birthright.”
The 1st Circuit was reviewing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston, who ruled in favor of 18 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia in February that challenged the order.
Sorokin ruled a patchwork state-by-state approach to citizenship would generate confusion, given the substantial movement of noncitizen parents and children between states and the impact Trump’s order would have on administering social services to them.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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