Seattle: A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing an executive order that sought to curtail automatic birthright citizenship in the United States, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour issued a temporary restraining order at the request of four Democratic-led states, halting the implementation of the order, which Trump signed on Monday during his first day in office.
“This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” the judge told a U.S. Justice Department lawyer defending the measure.
The executive order has already drawn five lawsuits from civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states, who argue that it flagrantly violates the U.S. Constitution.
“Under this order, babies being born today don’t count as U.S. citizens,” Washington Assistant Attorney General Lane Polozola said at the hearing. Representing Democratic state attorneys general from Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon, Polozola urged Judge Coughenour to block the order, which challengers argue violates the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. The clause guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
Trump’s executive order directs federal agencies to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
In a brief filed Wednesday, the Justice Department described the order as an “integral part” of Trump’s broader efforts to address the nation’s “broken immigration system and the ongoing crisis at the southern border.”
The lawsuit in Seattle is moving faster than four similar cases filed against the order. Judge Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, could rule from the bench or issue a written decision before the order’s effective date.
If implemented, the order would deny citizenship to children born after February 19 whose parents are neither citizens nor lawful permanent residents. These children would also be subject to deportation and barred from obtaining Social Security numbers, government benefits, and lawful employment opportunities as they grow older.
According to the Democratic-led states, more than 150,000 newborns would lose their citizenship annually if the order is upheld.
The challengers argue that the Constitution’s citizenship clause was definitively interpreted 127 years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents are entitled to citizenship. The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, was designed to overturn the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, which denied constitutional protections to enslaved Black people.
However, the Justice Department contends that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee universal birthright citizenship. It argued that the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark applied only to children of lawful permanent residents.
The department also claimed that the states’ case fails to meet legal requirements, asserting that only individuals—not states—can bring claims under the citizenship clause and that the states lack standing to sue.
Meanwhile, 36 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation on Tuesday to restrict automatic citizenship to children born to U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
