A federal appeals court has for a second time thrown out a case challenging the State Department’s refusal to list Israel as the birthplace of children born in Jerusalem. The court reiterated an earlier decision that Congress had no right to mandate that Jerusalem was a part of Israel for passport purposes. That decision, the court said, was solely that of the State Department and the executive branch.
The case revolved around a challenge to the State Department’s policy based on the Congressional law, which stated that the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The law entails numerous implications, one of them being Israel ought to appear as the country on passports issued in Jerusalem. Currently, no country is associated with Jerusalem on U.S. passports.