For the first time, a federal appeals court has weighed in on the merits of President Donald Trump's executive order prohibiting birthright citizenship to the children born on U.S. soil to some noncitizens — and tore it to shreds as unconstitutional, CBS News reported.
The ruling in State of Washington v. Trump, issued on Wednesday, upheld the findings of a district court judge who came to a similar conclusion.
A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that Trump's order "invalid because it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment's grant of citizenship to 'all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'"
The only judge who dissented from the opinion was Patrick Bumatay, himself an appointee of Trump.
The birthright citizenship order has prompted months of litigation, as well as an entirely parallel case in which Trump's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to limit lower-court judges' ability to issue nationwide injunctions against executive policies in the first place.
The Supreme Court, which has recently come under fire for a series of under-the-table rulings to let Trump continue undermining the law and the administrative state while lawsuits against his actions proceed, ultimately agreed to do this in certain narrow circumstances, but did not weigh in on the merits of the birthright citizenship order and sent the matter back down to lower courts for continued argument.
