Appeals court won't lift block on Trump's executive order attempting to
end birthright citizenship
[March 12, 2025]
By REBECCA BOONE
A third appellate court has upheld a block on President Donald Trump's
executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals made the ruling Tuesday, denying a
motion from Trump's legal team to immediately overturn a block issued by
a federal judge in Massachusetts.
Trump's executive order would block automatic citizenship for any child
born in the U.S. to someone who is in the country illegally, as well as
children born to someone with temporary legal status if the child's
father is not a citizen or legal permanent resident.
Roughly two dozen states have sued over the executive order, which they
say violates the Constitution's 14th Amendment promise of citizenship to
anyone born inside U.S. borders.
But Trump's legal team argues the Amendment, ratified 157 years ago
after the end of the Civil War, only confers citizenship to people born
under the jurisdiction of the United States — and they say jurisdiction
isn't always the same thing as being born on American soil.
At least half a dozen lawsuits over the order have been filed across the
U.S. so far, though some of them have been consolidated. So far, judges
have blocked Trump’s order in six of them while those cases move
forward. Two cases are still awaiting rulings on requests to block the
order, and one case has been placed on hold.
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In Tuesday's ruling, the appellate panel did not weigh in on the
overall legality of the lower court’s block, but said that Trump’s
attorneys didn’t prove that the block should be lifted right now.
The decision came in a pair of consolidated cases brought by New
Jersey and 19 other states as well as organizations representing
immigrants and a pregnant woman who is in the country legally with
temporary protected status.
Attorneys representing the Trump administration had asked the
circuit court to overturn the block placed by U.S. District Judge
Leo Sorokin in Massachusetts, arguing that New Jersey and the other
states and organizations that sued didn't have the legal right, or
standing, to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
But 1st U.S. Circuit Chief Judge David Barron, writing for the
unanimous panel, said the government didn't make any “developed
argument” about why Trump's executive order should be found legal.
The administration's attorneys also failed to convince the court
that the states and other plaintiffs lacked standing, Barron wrote.
He cited the lower court's finding that the states would suffer
irreparable harm if the order went into effect, while blocking the
order simply maintains the status quo.
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