A federal appeals court has firmly rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce an executive order that would end birthright citizenship in the United States.
In a 2–1 decision issued Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld lower court rulings that blocked the executive order, calling the measure unconstitutional and in direct conflict with the 14th Amendment.
“The Executive Order is invalid because it contradicts the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment’s grant of citizenship to ‘all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald M. Gould, a Clinton appointee, in the 48-page opinion.
The case consolidated lawsuits brought by several states—Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon—as well as expectant mothers who would be directly affected by the order. While the court declined to take up the mothers’ claims, pointing to an overlapping class action in New Hampshire, it affirmed that a nationwide injunction was justified to ensure complete relief for the state plaintiffs.
The ruling represents the first comprehensive rejection of the Trump administration’s arguments on the merits of the birthright citizenship ban and delivers a blow to one of President Trump’s most controversial immigration initiatives since returning to office.
The panel emphasized that limiting the injunction to only a handful of states would still allow harm to occur—both legally and financially.
“Residents may give birth in non-party states, and individuals from non-party states will inevitably move to the Plaintiff States,” the court noted. This would force states to overhaul how they verify eligibility for federal programs like Medicaid, CHIP, and Title IV-E foster care, likely costing them millions in unreimbursed services, the court found.
Citing demographic data, the states argued that more than 1,100 babies born each month in their jurisdictions would be stripped of citizenship under Trump’s order—making them ineligible for key public programs. Because states can only be reimbursed by the federal government for services provided to lawful residents, they stood to lose significant funding.
The ruling leaned heavily on United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the landmark 1898 Supreme Court case that established birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ immigration status—unless specifically excluded by the 14th Amendment.
The panel flatly rejected the Trump administration’s legal interpretation as speculative and detached from constitutional history.
“The Defendants’ proposed interpretation relies on a network of inferences unmoored from accepted legal principles,” the court wrote, warning that such logic risked allowing courts to “enforce constitutional guarantees only to the extent they serve underlying values” rather than the law itself.
Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, also a Clinton appointee, joined Gould in the majority. The dissent came from Trump-appointed Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, who argued that the states lacked legal standing and the court should have dismissed the case without ruling on the merits.
This decision follows a previous Ninth Circuit panel that unanimously rejected the administration’s emergency request for a partial stay on the nationwide injunction, stating clearly: “Citizenship by birth is an unequivocal Constitutional right.”
President Trump and key adviser Stephen Miller have long pushed for the elimination of birthright citizenship, calling it a magnet for illegal immigration. But this latest court defeat makes clear that efforts to unilaterally alter constitutional guarantees face serious legal obstacles.
The case now awaits possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
