The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld injunctions won by Democratic-led states and immigrant rights advocates that have stopped the Republican president's executive order from taking effect nationwide.
Trump's order, issued on his first day back in office on January 20, directs agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of US-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, also known as a "green card" holder.
US Circuit Judge David Barron said Trump's order violated the US Constitution's 14th Amendment, which states that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen. He said the length of the court's 100-page ruling should not be mistaken for a sign that the fundamental question was difficult.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the court had misinterpreted the 14th Amendment.
"We look forward to being vindicated by the Supreme Court," she said in a statement.
Meanwhile the US Supreme Court has again cleared the way for the Trump administration to revoke a temporary legal protection for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.
The justices granted the administration's request to put on hold a judge's ruling that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lacked the authority to end the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, granted under President Joe Biden while litigation proceeds. The Court's three liberal justices dissented.
"I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket," liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.
The court, Jackson wrote, is "privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power" over judgements made by lower courts that these 300,000 people should not be "left vulnerable to job loss, family separation and deportation" to Venezuela until the legality of the administration's actions is fully resolved.
Jackson noted that the US government in January concluded that Venezuela was experiencing a humanitarian crisis.
The TPS program is a humanitarian designation under US law for countries stricken by war, natural disaster or other catastrophes, giving recipients living in the United States deportation protection and access to work permits.
"This is another win for the administration affirming what we have always maintained: Temporary Protected Status is, by definition, temporary. It was never intended to be a pathway to permanent status or legal residency," Abigail Jackson said after the decision.
And in a separate anti-immigration strategy, the Trump administration said it would pay migrant children $2,500 to voluntarily return to their home countries.
The notice to shelters from the US Health and Human Services Department's Administration for Families and Children did not indicate any consequences for children who decline the offer.
Officials dismissed widespread reports among immigration lawyers and advocates that it was about to launch a much broader crackdown to deport migrant children who entered the country without their parents.
Advocates said $2,500 may prevent children from making informed decisions.
"For a child, $2,500 might be the most money they've ever seen in their life, and that may make it very, very difficult for them to accurately weigh the long-term risks of taking voluntary departure versus trying to stay in the United States and going through the immigration court process to get relief that they may be legally entitled to," said Melissa Adamson, senior attorney at the National Centre for Youth Law.
US authorities have arrested children crossing the border without parents more than 400,000 times since October 2021.
with AP
