Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Following a request from the US State Department, and on behalf of the American Samoa Government and Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata the US Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal’s have given a new time frame response to plaintiffs-appellees, who sought an “en banc” or full panel, review of the same court.

Plaintiffs-appellees, who are three American Samoans currently living in Utah and plaintiffs in the Fitisemanu v. USA citizenship federal case, last week Friday filed a petition for a “en banc” rehearing, or the full-panel of the Tenth Circuit to review the decision made in June of this year by the three-judge panel of the same appeals court, the majority of which ruled that citizenship birth on U.S. soil does not apply to those born in American Samoa. (See Samoa News edition Aug. 2nd for details.)

Last week, the Tenth Circuit ordered the federal defendants-appellants and Intervenor-defendants (ASG and Uifa’atali) to file a response to the re-hearing petition as of Aug. 16th.

The federal defendants-appellants on Wednesday requested to extend the deadline to Sept. 15th and also suggested that the court likewise set the same deadline for Intervenor-defendants for “administrative simplicity”.

According to the federal defendants, the extension is necessary because — among other things — of competing responsibilities for the US government attorney who briefed and argued this case before the appellant-panel and who has primary responsibility for drafting the government’s rehearing response.

Additionally, all parties do not oppose extending the deadline.

Court documents show that the request was granted with the new deadline of Sept. 15th to file re-hearing response.