9th Circuit upholds nationwide injunction in challenge to Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco has upheld a nationwide preliminary injunction that blocks President Donald Trump’s curtailment of birthright citizenship, finding that a U.S. Supreme Court decision restricting such injunctions does not foreclose universal relief in a lawsuit by four states.
Trump’s executive order bans birthright citizenship when a mother is in the country illegally or temporarily and when a father is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.
Trump’s executive order is likely unconstitutional “because it contradicts the plain language of the 14th Amendment’s grant of citizenship to ‘all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” the 9th Circuit said in a 2-1 decision July 23.
The 9th Circuit noted that the Supreme Court did not decide in its June 27 decision in Trump v. CASA whether nationwide injunctions are needed for states to receive “complete relief” in their suits challenging Trump’s order.
In this case, a nationwide injunction is needed to give the states “complete relief,” the 9th Circuit majority said in an opinion by Judge Ronald M. Gould, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton.
Some people subject to Trump’s order who give birth in a state that isn’t a plaintiff in the suit will “inevitably” move to a plaintiff state, Gould said. To account for the influx, plaintiff states would have to overhaul eligibility verification for programs such as Medicaid, children’s health insurance and foster care, the appeals court said.
“For that reason, the states would suffer the same irreparable harms under a geographically limited injunction as they would without an injunction,” Gould concluded.
In a partial dissent, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, an appointee of President Donald Trump during his first term, said the states lack standing at this time. States’ projected injuries “rely on speculation about how the order might be implemented and assumptions about how independent third parties might react to its implementation,” Bumatay said.
The state plaintiffs challenging the executive order are Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon.
The case is Washington v. Trump.
Hat tip to the Washington Post, which covered the decision.
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