Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship is temporarily blocked by a federal judge

Trump's order to to end birthright citizenship is temporarily blocked by a federal judge

Seattle — A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order redefining birthright citizenship on Thursday, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional” during the first hearing in a multi-state challenge to the order.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour repeatedly interrupted a Justice Department lawyer, questioning how he could find the order constitutional. When the attorney, Brett Shumate, requested a full briefing, Coughenour told him the hearing was his chance.

The temporary restraining order sought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington was the first to be heard by a judge, and it applies nationwide.

The lawsuit is one of five filed by 22 states and several immigrant rights organizations across the country. The lawsuits include personal testimonies from attorneys general who are US citizens by birthright, as well as names of pregnant women who are concerned that their children will not become US citizens.

Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, grilled DOJ attorneys, saying the order “boggles the mind.”

“This is blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour told Shumate. The judge said he’d been on the bench for more than four decades and couldn’t recall seeing another case in which the challenged action clearly violated the Constitution.

Shumate respectfully disagreed and asked the judge for a full briefing on the merits of the case, rather than issuing a 14-day restraining order to prevent its implementation.

The Department of Justice later stated that it will “vigorously defend” the president’s executive order, which it claims “correctly interprets the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

“We look forward to presenting a full merits argument to the Court and to the American people, who are desperate to see our Nation’s laws enforced,” the Justice Dept. stated.

Arguing for the states, Washington Assistant Attorney General Lane Polozola called the government’s claim that children of illegal immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “absurd”.

“Are they not subject to the decisions of the immigration courts?” replied the man. “Must they not follow the law while they are here?”

He also argued that the restraining order was necessary because, among other things, the executive order would immediately require states to spend millions of dollars to overhaul health care and benefits systems in order to reconsider an applicant’s citizenship status.

“The executive order will impact hundreds of thousands of citizens nationwide who will lose their citizenship under this new rule,” Polozola announced. “Births cannot be paused while the court considers this case.”

The Trump administration has stated that the order, signed by the president on Inauguration Day, will only affect those born after February 19, when it is scheduled to take effect. As a result, it argued that temporary relief is unnecessary.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown told reporters afterward that he was not surprised that Coughenour was unimpressed with the Justice Department’s position, given that the Citizenship Clause arose from one of the darkest chapters of American law, the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which ruled that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not entitled to citizenship.

“Babies are being born today, tomorrow, every day, all across this country, and so we had to act now,” Brown told the crowd. He stated that this has been “the law of the land for generations, that you are an American citizen if you are born on American soil, period.”

“Nothing that the president can do will change that,” said the man.

The United States is one of about 30 countries that practice birthright citizenship, also known as jus soli or “right of the soil”. The majority are in the Americas, with Canada and Mexico among them.

The lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees citizenship to people born and naturalized in the United States, and that states have interpreted the amendment in this manner for a century.

The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, 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.”

Trump’s order asserts that noncitizens’ children are not subject to US jurisdiction and directs federal agencies not to recognize citizenship for children who do not have at least one citizen parent.

In 1898, a key birthright citizenship case unfolded. The Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a citizen of the United States because he was born there. After traveling abroad, he was denied reentry by the federal government because he was not a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

However, some immigration restriction advocates argued that the case clearly applied to children born to legal immigrants. They say it is unclear whether it applies to children born to parents who are illegally present in the country.

Trump’s order prompted attorneys general to share their personal experiences with birthright citizenship. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a naturalized American citizen and the country’s first elected Chinese American attorney general, stated that the lawsuit was personal to him.

“There is no legitimate legal debate about this issue. But the fact that Trump is completely wrong will not stop him from causing serious harm to American families like mine right now,” Tong stated this week.

One of the lawsuits challenging the executive order involves a pregnant woman named “Carmen,” who is not a citizen but has lived in the United States for over 15 years and has a pending visa application that could lead to permanent residency status.

“Stripping children of the ‘priceless treasure’ of citizenship is a grave injury,” the complaint contends.” “It denies them the full membership in U.S. society to which they are entitled.”

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