A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents living in the country illegally.
The judge called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” during the first hearing in a multi-state legal battle challenging the directive.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, a provision ratified in 1868 to grant citizenship to former slaves following the Civil War.
However, President Trump issued the executive order just after being sworn in for his second term on Monday to curb illegal immigration.
The executive order would have denied citizenship to children born after February 19 whose parents are in the U.S. illegally. It also barred U.S. agencies from issuing or recognizing any documentation acknowledging citizenship for these children.
The order was met with immediate legal opposition, leading to at least five lawsuits involving 22 states and several immigrant rights groups. The lawsuit filed by Washington, Arizona, Oregon, and Illinois was the first to be heard in court.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” said U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, addressing a Justice Department attorney. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
Thursday’s ruling halts the Trump administration from taking steps to implement the executive order for 14 days, allowing further legal arguments to be presented. Judge Coughenour scheduled a hearing for February 6 to determine whether the order should be blocked long-term as the case proceeds.
Coughenour, 84, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the federal bench in 1981, questioned the Department of Justice attorney, Brett Shumate, about whether he personally believed the executive order was constitutional.
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order,” Coughenour said.
Shumate responded, “Absolutely,” defending the order by saying the arguments the Trump administration is presenting have never been litigated before. He also argued that there was no need for a 14-day temporary restraining order since it would expire before the executive order took effect.
The Department of Justice later stated that it would “vigorously defend” the president’s executive order, claiming it “correctly interprets the 14th Amendment of the U.S. 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 statement read.
The U.S. is one of approximately 30 countries that practice birthright citizenship, also known as jus soli or “right of the soil,” with most located in the Americas, including Canada and Mexico.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, ensures 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 argues that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. and thus not entitled to citizenship.
Washington Assistant Attorney General Lane Polozola, representing the states challenging the order, called that argument “absurd,” pointing out that neither undocumented immigrants nor their children are exempt from U.S. laws.
“Are they not subject to the decisions of the immigration courts?” Polozola asked. “Must they not follow the law while they are here?”
Polozola also argued that the restraining order was justified because the executive order would require the states to spend millions of dollars to revise healthcare and benefits systems to reconsider applicants’ citizenship status.
“The executive order will impact hundreds of thousands of citizens nationwide who will lose their citizenship under this new rule,” Polozola stated. “Births cannot be paused while the court considers this case.”
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown spoke to reporters after the hearing, stating he wasn’t surprised by Judge Coughenour’s stance, considering the citizenship clause’s origins in one of the darkest periods in American legal history—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 said. “It has been the law of the land for generations that you are an American citizen if you are born on American soil, period.”
He added, “Nothing the president can do will change that.”
A landmark Supreme Court case in 1898, Wong Kim Ark v. United States, affirmed birthright citizenship, ruling that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen. Some immigration restriction advocates, however, argue that the ruling only applied to children born to legal immigrants, not to those born to parents living in the country illegally.
The legal challenge has personal significance for many involved. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, the nation’s first Chinese American elected attorney general, expressed that the lawsuit was personal for him as a U.S. citizen by birthright.
“Nothing that the president can do will change that,” Tong said, adding that Coughenour’s decision was the right one. “But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own.”
