Judge blocks Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship

On Thursday, a US federal judge said President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship was “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a temporary restraining order to block it.

Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee who sits in Seattle, granted the request by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and three other Democratic-led states for the emergency order halting the policy’s implementation for the next 14 days while there are more briefings in the legal challenge.

The temporary restraining order sought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington was the first to get a hearing before a judge and applies nationally.

The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and some immigrant rights groups across the country. The suits include personal testimonies from attorneys general who are U.S. citizens by birthright and names of pregnant women who are afraid their children won’t become U.S. citizens.

Read Also: 22 Democrat-led states sue over Trump’s birthright citizenship rule

Trump in his executive order directed U.S. agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States if neither their mother nor father is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.

“I am having trouble understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this order is constitutional,” the judge told a U.S. Justice Department lawyer defending Trump’s order. “It just boggles my mind.”

Beyond the impact that Trump’s order will have on their residents, Washington and the other states are arguing that the end of birthright citizenship will burden their state programs financially and logistically, as those children are shut off from federal benefits that they would be entitled to as citizens.

The Trump administration is arguing that that clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” allows the president to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants and even children whose parents are lawfully present but lack permanent legal status.