A U.S. federal appeals court has refused to allow former President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship to take effect.
The decision was made by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied the Justice Department’s request to reinstate the order.
Trump’s executive order aimed to prevent children from obtaining U.S. citizenship if they were born in the country to mothers who were not legally present and fathers who were neither citizens nor permanent residents.
However, legal experts argued that the order went against the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil.
The Justice Department had asked the court to temporarily lift a lower court’s ruling that blocked the order.
The judges denied the request, stating that the department had not provided enough reason to believe the appeal would succeed.
One of the judges, Danielle Forrest, who was appointed by Trump, wrote separately to express concerns about how the Justice Department defined an emergency.
She noted that challenges to government policies in court are normal, especially when they represent a major shift from past practices.