Legal setbacks mount for Donald Trump’s order on birthright citizenship

File photo: US President Donald Trump

BOSTON: Over a span of a month, four separate federal courts rejected President Donald Trump’s executive order ending automatic citizenship for the children of people in the country illegally or temporarily. On Friday, one more court weighed in, and the result was no different.A three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the Republican president cannot enforce the order. The court joined the four others that earlier had issued or upheld decisions blocking it nationwide.The US Supreme Court is almost certain to have the final word on birthright citizenship. The Trump administration has already asked the court to take up the issue.The right to citizenship at birth has long been a bedrock principle in the United States, widely accepted to have been granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868. It was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship. The amendment includes a citizenship clause that says all people born or naturalised in the US and “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens.