In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that President Trump’s executive order curtailing automatic birthright citizenship is unconstitutional and blocked its enforcement nationwide. The decision marked the first time that an appeals court assessed the legality of Trump’s order since the Supreme Court in June curbed the power of lower court judges to enjoin that and other federal policies on a nationwide basis. The court’s majority said that the Democratic-led states that sued to block the policy—Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington State—were entitled to nationwide relief because a narrower order deprived them of “complete relief.”
