The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that Roberto Moncada, a 75-year-old man born in New York City, is not a U.S. citizen because his father enjoyed full diplomatic immunity when Moncada was born in 1950. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Anthony D. Johnstone said the record supported the district court’s finding that Moncada’s father served as an attaché to Nicaragua’s United Nations mission—a position that places the family outside the “jurisdiction” requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the U.S. government had treated Moncada as a citizen for decades—issuing him five passports before revoking the most recent one in 2018—the appellate court said it lacked equitable authority to override the constitutional exception for children of foreign diplomats. The decision in Moncada v. Rubio affirms a lower-court ruling and leaves Moncada without legal status in the country where he has lived and worked for nearly seven decades.