A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing an executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States, calling it “clearly unconstitutional.”
At the request of four Democratic-led states, U.S. District Judge John Coughnour issued a temporary restraining order to block the administration from enforcing the order, which the Republican president signed during his first day in office on Monday.
“This is a clearly unconstitutional order,” the judge told a U.S. Justice Department lawyer defending Trump’s order.
The order has already been the subject of five lawsuits by civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states, who call it a blatant violation of the US Constitution.
“Under this order, babies born today are not counted as American citizens,” Washington Assistant Attorney General Len Polozola told Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour at the start of the hearing in Seattle.
Polozola, on behalf of the Democratic state attorneys general of Washington State, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, urged the judge to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the administration from implementing this key element of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Challengers argue that Trump’s actions violate the right enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment which provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
Trump in his executive order directed US agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the United States if their mother or father is not a US citizen or legal permanent resident.
In a brief filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department called the order an “integral part” of the President’s efforts “to address this country’s broken immigration system and the ongoing crisis at the southern border.”
The lawsuit filed in Seattle is moving more quickly than the four other cases brought on the executive order. It has been handed to Coughnor, appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan.
The judge could potentially rule from the bench after hearing arguments, or he could wait to write a decision before Trump’s order takes effect.
Under the order, children born after Feb. 19 whose parents are not citizens or lawful permanent residents will be subject to deportation and will be barred from obtaining Social Security numbers, various government benefits and the ability to work legally when they grow up. Will be prevented from. ,
According to Democratic-led states, more than 150,000 newborn babies annually would be denied citizenship if Trump’s order is allowed to stand.
Democratic state attorneys general have said the understanding of the Constitution’s citizenship clause was strengthened 127 years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court held that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to U.S. citizenship.
The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 after the Civil War and overturned the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, which had declared that the Constitution’s protections did not apply to enslaved black people.
But the Justice Department argued in its brief that the 14th Amendment was never interpreted to grant citizenship universally to all people born in the country, and that the Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark It was concerned only with the children of permanent residents.
The Justice Department said the four states’ case “transcends numerous pretrial barriers.” The department said that only individuals, not states, can bring claims under the Citizenship Clause and that states do not have the necessary legal standing to sue over Trump’s order.
Thirty-six of Trump’s Republican colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday introduced separate legislation to restrict automatic citizenship for children born to citizens or lawful permanent residents.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)