Federal judge blocks Trump’s order that limits birthright citizenship

January 23, 2025 Brooklyn Eagle Staff
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SEATTLE — A FEDERAL JUDGE ON THURSDAY TEMPORARILY BLOCKED President Donald Trump’s executive order redefining birthright citizenship, the Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour called the executive order “blatantly unconstitutional” during the first hearing in a multi-state effort challenging the order. The case is one of five lawsuits that 22 states and a number of immigrants’ rights groups across the country have initiated. The temporary restraining order that three western states (Arizona, Oregon and Washington) and Illinois have sought was the first to get a hearing before a judge, and it applies nationally. Coughenour began the hearing by grilling the administration’s attorneys, saying the order “boggles the mind.” The states’ lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship for people born and naturalized in the U.S., and that states have been interpreting the amendment that way for a century. The 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was also meant to guarantee citizenship for former slaves. It reads: “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.”

However, Trump’s order asserts that the children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and orders federal agencies to not recognize citizenship for children who don’t have at least one parent who is a citizen, a point which Washington state’s attorney general refuted during the hearing, calling the thought “absurd.”

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