A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright rights, calling it “shamefully unconstitutional.”
Trump signed the order on his first day in office, saying it would apply regardless of parents' immigration status.
The order came despite a Supreme Court precedent more than 100 years old that upheld birthright law. They were his first executive actions mounting a legal challenge without outside groups and multiple states joining the case.
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, issued the ruling even though 48 percent of respondents said they supported its abolition. 26 percent said they strongly supported it, according to a poll conducted by JL Partners for DailyMail.com.
In contrast, 32 percent said they were against it, while 23 percent were strongly against it.
The federal judge has ruled in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argue that the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court case law have strengthened birthright rights.
The delay freezes the order until the judge can hear oral arguments. But the 84-year-old made his first impression clear by granting a motion, assuming there was a good chance the plaintiffs will prevail.
'I have been on the bench for over forty years. I cannot recall any other case where the case presented is as clear as it is here. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he said.
Washington State AG Nick Brown and top law enforcement officials from other Democratic-led states had requested a fourteen-day stay.
The case is one of five lawsuits filed by 22 states and a number of immigrant rights groups across the country. The lawsuits include personal testimony from attorneys general who are U.S. citizens by birthright and names of pregnant women who fear their children will not become U.S. citizens.
President Donald Trump has signed an order that he says would end the birthright rights of children born to parents who are not here legally. It led to an immediate legal challenge
The order, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day, is expected to go into effect on February 19. It could affect hundreds of thousands of people born in the country, according to one of the lawsuits. In 2022, there were about 255,000 births to citizen children born to mothers living in the country illegally and about 153,000 births to two such parents, according to the four-state lawsuit filed in Seattle.
Even as he signed it, Trump seemed to acknowledge that its constitutionality was uncertain.
“We think we have good ground,” he said when asked if he could withstand a constitutional challenge as he issued the order during a marathon signing session on Monday evening, shortly after taking office. 'You could be right. We'll find out,” Trump said.
The US is among about thirty countries where birthright – the principle of jus soli or 'right to the soil' – is practiced. Most are in the Americas, including Canada and Mexico.
The lawsuits argue that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship to people born and naturalized in the U.S., and that states have interpreted the amendment that way for a century.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that children born to foreign parents in the US are citizens, citing the 14th Amendment.
The post-Civil War amendment states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Under the 14th Amendment, all persons “born or naturalized in the United States” are citizens
Trump's order states that the children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and orders federal agencies not to recognize citizenship for children who do not have at least one parent who is a citizen.
In 1898 a key birthright case occurred. The Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the country. After traveling abroad, he was denied entry by the federal government on the grounds that he was not a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
But some advocates of immigration restrictions have argued that this case clearly applied to children of parents who were both legal immigrants. They say it is less clear whether this applies to children of parents living in the country illegally.
Trump's executive order prompted attorneys general to share their personal connections to birthright citizenship. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, for example, a U.S. citizen by birthright and the nation's first Chinese-American elected attorney general, said the lawsuit was personal to him.
'There is no legitimate legal debate on this issue. But the fact that Trump is completely wrong will not stop him from now causing serious harm to American families like mine,” Tong said this week.
One of the lawsuits aimed at blocking the executive order involves the case of a pregnant woman, identified as “Carmen,” who is not a citizen but has lived in the United States for more than fifteen years and has a pending visa application that could lead to permanent residence status.
“Depriving children of the 'priceless treasure' of citizenship is a serious injury,” the lawsuit says. “It denies them the full membership in American society to which they are entitled.”
