A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born to those in the United States illegally.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, asserted the executive order was “blatantly unconstitutional,” the Washington State Standard reported.
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that is a constitutional order,” the judge said. “It boggles my mind.”
The ruling specifically addresses a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington state, although other lawsuits were also filed against the executive order.
“The Plaintiff States will also suffer irreparable harm because thousands of children will be born within their borders but denied full participation and opportunity in American society,” the lawsuit says, as per ABC News. “Absent a temporary restraining order, children born in the Plaintiff States will soon be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many stateless.”
American Faith reported that a coalition of 18 Democratic-led states, along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston against President Donald Trump’s executive order. The plaintiffs argue that the order violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to all individuals born on U.S. soil.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also filed a lawsuit over the executive order.
According to the executive order, the Fourteenth Amendment “has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’” In other words, citizenship is not automatically extended to those whose mothers are in the United States illegally and whose fathers are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents.
