It was inevitable: One of President Donald J. Trump's executive orders would make its way before the Supreme Court, and it looks like we have the first to get onto the emergency application track. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate the order limiting birthright citizenship. Four federal judges had previously issued injunctions on this order. Onto the Supreme Court, we go then (via NBC News):
JUST IN: A 9th Circuit appeals court panel has denied the Trump administration’s bid for emergency relief from the injunction blocking President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. pic.twitter.com/Wkj04j8Shi
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 20, 2025
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday declined the Justice Department’s request to immediately reinstate President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, setting up a potential emergency application to the Supreme Court.
Legal experts have said Trump's order conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment, which extends American citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, by denying citizenship to future children born in the United States if their mothers were unlawfully present in the country and their fathers were not citizens or permanent residents.
The Justice Department had asked the 9th Circuit to grant an emergency stay of a lower court’s decision blocking Trump's order from going into effect.
In denying the request, the panel found the Justice Department had not made a “strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits of this appeal.”
Let’s let the Supreme Court decide.