The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Tuesday has denied the request by the Trump administration to lift multiple lower court judges' nationwide injunction on President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship executive order.
The request was denied by the Chief Judge David Barron, who was former President Barack Obama's first acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. (2009-2010).
"We do not address the government's appeal of the preliminary injunction itself," Barron concluded in the 32-page ruling Tuesday. "We address only the government's stay motion, which asks us to decide whether the District Court's order granting a preliminary injunction should be stayed while this court takes up an interlocutory appeal of that injunction.
"Based on the arguments that the government presents in support of the stay motion, we deny it."
Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship will stay in place pending appeal.
The administration sought to stay the injunction, arguing the blue states 18 states that filed the lawsuit lacked standing.
But Barron said the government did not make a "strong showing" that the states lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution.
Judges Julie Rikelman and Seth R. Aframe also joined the opinion.
At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, was not a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.
The Trump administration has asserted children of noncitizens are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
Attorneys for the states argue that it does, and that it has been recognized since the amendment's adoption, notably in an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court decision. That decision, United States v Wong Kim Ark, held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were the children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.
Trump made a day one order to fulfill a campaign vow to review birthright citizenship, arguing that illegal migrants did not have the lawful permission to have a baby in the U.S. that would be automatically granted citizenship. Trump has strongly disagreed with "chain migration," saying illegal or even temporary migrants could effectively force their way to protected immigration status in the U.S. by merely coming on to U.S. soil.
"The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States," the Jan. 20 order read. "The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof.'
"Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States:
(1) when that person's mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or,
(2) when that person's mother's presence in the United States at the time of said person's birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth."
Democrat state attorneys general have fought the Trump administration's authority through executive order with lawsuits from 18 states.
Information from The Associated Press was used to compile this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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