A US appeals court has rejected an emergency order request from the Donald Trump administration regarding the shutting down of birthright citizenship. The Trump administration is pitching the move as part of Republican crackdown on illegal immigrants and border crossings.
The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal let the order stand which is blocking Trump from curtailing automatic birthright citizenship nationwide. The order has also been blocked by the judges in Massachusetts, Maryland and New Hampshire. A final decision on Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, may finally be taken by the US Supreme Court.
Trump had signed the executive order on January 20 directing the US agencies to not register citizenship of children born in the US after Wednesday, if neither of the parents of the child are US citizens or a permanent resident.
Trump’s Justice Department asked the 9th Circuit to delay a decision by Seattle-based US District Judge, who had ruled the policy to be unconstitutional. The Justice Department argued that the Judge went too far by issuing a nationwide ban at the request of four Democratic-led states. However, a three-judge panel refused to delay the ruling and scheduled the case for arguments in June.
The Justice Department has argued in the filings that shutting down automatic birthright citizenship is “an integral part of President Trump’s broader effort to repair the United States’ immigration system and to address the ongoing crisis at the southern border,” a report by Independent said.
Currently, anyone who is born in US automatically becomes a citizen, regardless of what their parents’ immigration status is. This was dictated first by a federal statute and then by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868.