Latest news with #constitutional
Forbes
5 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Federal Judge Blocks Trump's Birthright Citizenship Ban In Third Ruling Opposing President
A federal judge handed down the third ruling against President Donald Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship in the U.S., meaning the president's executive order against the right to citizenship will remain blocked until the Supreme Court, which recently side-stepped the matter, steps in. The ruling was issued Friday afternoon. (Photo by) Getty Images U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin said Friday Trump's executive order calling for the end of birthright citizenship, which grants citizenship to children born in the U.S., was unconstitutional. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump push to ban birthright citizenship unconstitutional, US court rules
Donald Trump's effort to repeal birthright citizenship has hit another a stumbling block, with a federal appeals court in San Francisco declaring the president's attempt unconstitutional. The three-judge ruling panel in the 9th US circuit court of appeals echoed a district court in New Hampshire that blocked the executive order earlier this month. 'The district court correctly concluded that the executive order's proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,' the verdict said. The case is now one stop further on the long road to the US supreme court. Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship was signed just hours after the president took office on 20 January and was immediately challenged in a spread of courts across the country. It has faced a tumultuous legal battle ever since. Birthright citizenship is a legal principle that allows nearly everyone born on US soil to become a US citizen. In under a month since the executive order's filing, multiple judges across the country have filed injunctions blocking the order. Trump's administration then took to the supreme court to fight the injunctions. In a major decision, the US supreme court ruled that injunctions by the lower courts were exceeding their given authority, effectively transforming the mechanics of the US justice system. The verdict did not address the legality of the birthright citizenship ban itself. A loophole was left, however, for those looking to fight the executive order – class action lawsuits. In opposition to the executive order, New Hampshire judge Joseph LaPlante recognized babies across the US as a class that would be affected by the lawsuit and said depriving them of citizenship constituted irreparable harm. Birthright citizenship was embedded in the US constitution's 14th amendment in 1868, overturning the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision and giving citizenship to formerly enslaved Americans. It was strengthened in 1898 in the Wong Ark case, which upheld the citizenship of American-born Wong Kim Ark in the face of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Indigenous Americans were historically excluded from birthright citizenship, which changed with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Long a fringe issue in rightwing circles, the effort to repeal birthright citizenship was brought back into Congress in 1991 and has appeared regularly since. Trump's executive order, constitutional or not, marks its furthest foray into the mainstream. At time of writing the Trump administration was yet to comment on the ruling.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump push to ban birthright citizenship unconstitutional, US court rules
Donald Trump's effort to repeal birthright citizenship has hit another a stumbling block, with a federal appeals court in San Francisco declaring the president's attempt unconstitutional. The three-judge ruling panel in the 9th US circuit court of appeals echoed a district court in New Hampshire that blocked the executive order earlier this month. 'The district court correctly concluded that the executive order's proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,' the verdict said. The case is now one stop further on the long road to the US supreme court. Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship was signed just hours after the president took office on 20 January and was immediately challenged in a spread of courts across the country. It has faced a tumultuous legal battle ever since. Birthright citizenship is a legal principle that allows nearly everyone born on US soil to become a US citizen. In under a month since the executive order's filing, multiple judges across the country have filed injunctions blocking the order. Trump's administration then took to the supreme court to fight the injunctions. In a major decision, the US supreme court ruled that injunctions by the lower courts were exceeding their given authority, effectively transforming the mechanics of the US justice system. The verdict did not address the legality of the birthright citizenship ban itself. A loophole was left, however, for those looking to fight the executive order – class action lawsuits. In opposition to the executive order, New Hampshire judge Joseph LaPlante recognized babies across the US as a class that would be affected by the lawsuit and said depriving them of citizenship constituted irreparable harm. Birthright citizenship was embedded in the US constitution's 14th amendment in 1868, overturning the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision and giving citizenship to formerly enslaved Americans. It was strengthened in 1898 in the Wong Ark case, which upheld the citizenship of American-born Wong Kim Ark in the face of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Indigenous Americans were historically excluded from birthright citizenship, which changed with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Long a fringe issue in rightwing circles, the effort to repeal birthright citizenship was brought back into Congress in 1991 and has appeared regularly since. Trump's executive order, constitutional or not, marks its furthest foray into the mainstream. At time of writing the Trump administration was yet to comment on the ruling.
CNN
6 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Federal appeals court issues another blow to Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship
Source: CNN A federal appeals court on Wednesday issued another major blow to President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, ruling that it's unconstitutional and upholding a nationwide block against the controversial policy. The 2-1 ruling from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is significant because the Supreme Court late last month ordered lower courts to take a second look at a set of nationwide injunctions issued earlier this year that halted Trump's implementation of his Day One order to ensure they weren't broader than necessary. The San Francisco-based appeals court decided that one such injunction issued by a federal judge in Seattle in a case brought by a group of Democratic-led states did not represent a judicial overreach that needed to be reined in. 'The district court below concluded that a universal preliminary injunction is necessary to provide the states with complete relief. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the states complete relief,' appeals court Judge Ronald Gould wrote for the majority. 'The states would suffer the same irreparable harms under a geographically-limited injunction as they would without an injunction,' Gould, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, added, explaining that a narrower injunction would require the states that challenged the law to overhaul their eligibility verification systems for various social services programs. Wednesday's decision also represents the first time an appeals court has fully concluded that Trump's order is unconstitutional. The Trump administration has the option of asking the full 9th Circuit to review the case, but it could also appeal the matter straight to the Supreme Court. 'The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order's proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,' Gould wrote in the ruling, which was joined by appeals court judge Michael Hawkins, also a Clinton appointee. He went on to say that Trump's order contradicts the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution, an 1898 Supreme Court case known as United States v. Wong Kim Ark and decades of Executive Branch practice. Trump's order is already blocked on a nationwide basis after a federal judge in New Hampshire barred enforcement of it against any babies who would be impacted by the policy in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. Such lawsuits are one of the ways the Supreme Court said plaintiffs can still try to broadly block Trump's order. Appeals court Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, partially dissented from the court's ruling on Wednesday. He said he didn't think the states who challenged Trump's order had the legal right — known as 'standing' — to bring the lawsuit in the first place. As a result, he said, he thought it was 'premature to address the merits of the citizenship question or the scope of the injunction.' US District Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee in Seattle, was the first federal judge to block Trump's order. When he first issued an emergency order preventing enforcement of it in late January, he said it was 'blatantly unconstitutional.' See Full Web Article
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Court makes crucial decision on Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship
A federal appeals court delivered a blow to Donald Trump 's executive order ending birthright citizenship, deeming it unconstitutional. It's the latest step in an ongoing battle between Trump and various judges in states far over his plan to deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal migrants. The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after Trump´s plan was also blocked by a federal judge in New Hampshire. It brings the issue one step closer to coming back quickly before the Supreme Court. The 9th Circuit decision keeps a block on the Trump administration enforcing the order that would deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. 'The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order´s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,' the majority wrote. The 2-1 ruling keeps in place a decision from U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle, who blocked Trump´s effort to end birthright citizenship and decried what he described as the administration´s attempt to ignore the Constitution for political gain. The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The Supreme Court has since restricted the power of lower court judges to issue orders that affect the whole country, known as nationwide injunctions. But the 9th Circuit majority found that the case fell under one of the exceptions left open by the justices. The case was filed by a group of states who argued that they need a nationwide order to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship only being the law in half of the country. 'We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief,' Judge Michael Hawkins and Ronald Gould, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote. Judge Patrick Bumatay, who was appointed by Trump, dissented. He found that the states don't have the legal right, or standing, to sue. 'We should approach any request for universal relief with good faith skepticism, mindful that the invocation of `complete relief´ isn´t a backdoor to universal injunctions,' he wrote. Bumatay did not weigh in on whether ending birthright citizenship would be constitutional. The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens. Justice Department attorneys argue that the phrase 'subject to United States jurisdiction' in the amendment means that citizenship isn´t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone. The states - Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon - argue that ignores the plain language of the Citizenship Clause as well as a landmark birthright citizenship case in 1898 where the Supreme Court found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil. Trump´s order asserts that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if the mother does not have legal immigration status or is in the country legally but temporarily, and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. At least nine lawsuits challenging the order have been filed around the U.S. After the recent Supreme Court ruling that blocked federal judges from stopping Trump though 'nationwide injunctions,' a class-action lawsuit was deemed the only option to stop the president. The high court had allowed Trump's executive order halting birthright citizenship to take effect handing him a major victory. The court ruled 6-3 in favor of Trump, with all six conservative justices - including the three he appointed - siding with the president. Speaking at the White House, Trump reacted at the time: 'This was a big one. Amazing decision, one we're very happy about. This really brings back the Constitution. This is what it's all about.'
