Ninth Circuit upholds nationwide block of Trump birthright citizenship order

Courthouse New reports the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel yesterday upheld a federal judge’s nationwide preliminary injunction of President Donald Trump’s  executive order that denied citizenship to the children who are born in the U.S. to undocumented parents.

With one dissent, the panel found the four states that brought the lawsuit — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — had standing to challenge the executive order and that a nationwide injunction is not barred by a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which without deciding the constitutionality of Trump’s limitation of birthright citizenship, found that lower courts couldn’t issue universal injunctions of the president’s order.

The court held that “because State Plaintiffs have standing and are likely to succeed in demonstrating that the Executive Order is unconstitutional, we affirm the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction and its determination that a universal
preliminary injunction is necessary to give the States complete relief on their claims.”

A Trump appointee, Judge Bumatay concurred in part and dissented in part and would have concluded that the states at this time lacked standing to bring the action.

KJ