BOSTON (AP) — Over a span of a month this summer, four federal courts rejected President Donald Trump’s executive order ending automatic citizenship for the children of people in the country illegally or temporarily.
On Friday, one more court weighed in, and the result was no different.
A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said in a unanimous decision that the Republican president cannot enforce the order. The court joined the four others that earlier had issued or upheld decisions blocking it nationwide.
The U.S. Supreme Court is almost certain to have the final word on birthright citizenship. The Trump administration has already asked the high court to take up the issue.
Federal judges have made clear how much his order conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, to say nothing of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is not bound by what those lower court judges have said or even its own past rulings. Nonetheless, those losses could mean an uphill fight for his administration even in front of the justices, who have so far sided with the president on many legal challenges to his effort to remake the government.
The 14th Amendment
The right to citizenship at birth has long been a bedrock principle in the United States, widely accepted to have been granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868. It was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.
The amendment includes a citizenship clause that says all people born or naturalized in the U.S. and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens.
Administration lawyers have argued that inclusion of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means that citizenship is not automatically conferred to children based on their birth in the U.S. They contend it requires children to have primary allegiance to the U.S., and people who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily — and by extension, their children — cannot claim that because their permanent home is another country to which that allegiance is tied.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement Friday that the 1st Circuit was misinterpreting the 14th Amendment.
Legal scholars say the administration’s interpretation is countered by the amendment’s history and subsequent Supreme Court rulings.
Experts say members of Congress who debated the amendment clearly understood it would establish an expansive definition of birthright citizenship that included the children of immigrants, and they meant the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as subject to U.S. law.
In 1898, the Supreme Court found that the son of Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment, based on his birth in San Francisco.
Lower court decisions across the country have consistently blocked the enforcement of Trump’s birthright citizenship order, pointing to the legal and constitutional underpinnings that have historically supported the notion of citizenship at birth. With the narrative surrounding birthright citizenship more relevant than ever, the impending Supreme Court decision could define the future of America's immigration policy.
