Trump's order on birthright citizenship temporarily blocked, judge says 'blatantly unconstitutional'
SEATTLE, Wash. - Less than three days after it was signed, President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship has run into its first legal roadblock.
A federal judge in Washington state has issued his own order, temporarily blocking enforcement of Trump’s order.
First legal ruling
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled Thursday in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argue the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court case law have cemented birthright citizenship.
During the court hearing, Coughenour called the order "blatantly unconstitutional," the Associated Press reported.
Trump's order is slated to take effect on Feb. 19.
But Coughenour, an appointee of Republican former President Ronald Reagan, issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the order from being enforced nationwide for 14 days while he weighs whether to issue a preliminary injunction.
The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states, including California, and a number of immigrants' rights groups across the country. The suits include personal testimonies from attorneys general who are U.S. citizens by birthright, and names pregnant women who are afraid their children won’t become U.S. citizens.
Why you should care:
It could impact hundreds of thousands of people born in the country, according to one of the lawsuits. In 2022, there were about 255,000 births of citizen children to mothers living in the country illegally and about 153,000 births to two such parents, according to the four-state suit filed in Seattle.
"Children would be forced to live under the threat of deportation," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference on Tuesday. "The fear, anxiety and trauma of that alone is enormously detrimental to their mental and emotional well-being."
Not having citizenship would mean they wouldn't be able to get Social Security, a passport and wouldn't be able to work legally. They wouldn't be able to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain political offices.
And on a larger scale, Bonta said that the order would directly affect California, which will lose critical funding for Medi-Cal and the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. The state's ability to receive federal funding on those programs hinges on the immigration status of the people they're serving.
What is birthright citizenship?
The backstory:
Birthright citizenship means anyone born in the United States automatically becomes an American citizen.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment in July 1868. That amendment assured citizenship for all.
Both liberal and conservative legal scholars say a president cannot end birthright citizenship with a stroke of a pen as it is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution under the 14th Amendment.
"The Supreme Court said that the 14th Amendment means what it says: All persons born in the United States or naturalized are US citizens," John Travsvina, former ICE legal advisor and University of San Francisco Law School Dean told KTVU earlier this week. "S0 125 years later, trying to change that definition, it needs to go back to the courts, or it needs to go through the constitutional amendment process."
The other side:
But the 14th Amendment didn’t always translate to everyone being afforded birthright citizenship. For example, it wasn’t until 1924 that Congress finally granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S.
Granting birthright citizenship is not the practice of every country, and Trump and his supporters have argued that the system is being abused and that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen.
Some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the 14th Amendment allows the U.S. to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally. Trump himself used that language in his 2023 announcement that he would aim to end birthright citizenship if reelected.
Trump executive order to end birthright citizenship
What we know:
Trump signed an executive order Monday aiming to end birthright citizenship, slated to take effect on Feb. 19.
The order is part of his larger strategy, he has stated, to "fully secure the borders" starting on his first day in office.
"The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commissioner of Social Security shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the regulations and policies of their respective departments and agencies are consistent with this order, and that no officers, employees, or agents of their respective departments and agencies act, or forbear from acting, in any manner inconsistent with this order," the order read.
Tuesday, at least 19 states and two cities sued to block Trump’s executive order.
What we don't know:
Since birthright citizenship is enshrined in the constitution, it’s not clear how the order will play out.
The next steps of implementing the order are also unclear, as Trump has spoken before about taking executive action to end birthright citizenship, steering Congress to pass a law to end it, or taking the issue "back to the people."
What they're saying:
Trump said Monday he expected the legal challenge. He said automatic citizenship was "just ridiculous" and that he believes he was on "good (legal) ground" to change it.
"That’s a big one," he bantered with reporters while signing an order declaring the border emergency.
Key case stems from San Francisco
Local perspective:
A key case in the history of birthright citizenship came in 1898 in San Francisco.
That's when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the states. The federal government had tried to deny him reentry into the country after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn’t a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
But some have argued that the 1898 case clearly applied to children born of parents who are both legal immigrants to America, but that it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents without legal status or, for example, who come for a short-term like a tourist visa.
Changing the U.S. Constitution would require two thirds of both the House and the Senate. And ¾ of the nation's state legislatures would need to ratify any change.
The Source: Information on the judge's ruling was taken from Associated Press reporting. Background information came from previous FOX Television Stations reporting and FOX News. KTVU also contributed to this report.