President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 20 ending birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants.
An appeals court on Wednesday upheld an order blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court judge’s order—the first time an appellate court has ruled on the executive order on birthright citizenship.
Trump’s order, issued on his first day in office on Jan. 20, stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause does not extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.
The U.S. Department of Justice had asked for the 9th Circuit to stay the ruling by Seattle-based U.S. District Judge John Coughenour on an emergency basis, arguing that the court has stymied the implementation of executive branch policy for nearly three weeks. Coughenour had ruled on Feb. 6 that Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship to children born from noncitizens was unconstitutional.
The 9th Circuit denied the request for an emergency stay, saying that emergency relief was not warranted and that the government had failed to demonstrate that irreparable harm would occur immediately.
The three-judge panel will instead hear arguments in June.
U.S. Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest wrote in her opinion Wednesday that a rushed ruling would erode public confidence in the judicial branch.
“When we decide issues of significant public importance and political controversy hours after we finish reading the final brief, we should not be surprised if the public questions whether we are politicians in disguise,” Forrest wrote.
“To constitute an emergency under our Rules, the Government must show that its inability to implement the specific policy at issue creates a serious risk of irreparable harm within 21 days.”
The other judges on the panel included U.S. Circuit Judge William Canby and U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith.
The White House and Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Trump’s executive order directed U.S. agencies to not recognize as citizens children born in the United States to those who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The order stated that these individuals are not fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and therefore, U.S. citizenship does not extend to their children born in the country.
Trump in a Sunday post on social media said that birthright citizenship was designed to allow former slaves to become citizens, not illegal immigrants.
“The 14th Amendment Right of American Citizenship never had anything to do with modern day ‘gate crashers,’ illegal immigrants who break the Law by being in our Country, it had everything to do with giving Citizenship to former slaves,” Trump wrote.
“Our Founding Fathers are ‘spinning in their graves’ at the idea that our Country can be taken away from us. No Nation in the World has anything like this. Our lawyers and Judges have to be tough, and protect America!”
Reuters contributed to this report.