By Dan Catchpole, Nate Raymonde (NSE:)
SEATTLE (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing the Republican president’s executive order restricting the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States, calling it “patently unconstitutional.”
Seattle-based U.S. District Judge John Coughenour issued a temporary restraining order at the urging of four Democratic-led states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — preventing the administration to enforce the order. Trump signed the order on Monday, his first day back in office.
The judge, appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan, dealt the first legal setback to the hardline immigration policies that are a centerpiece of Trump’s second term as president.
“We will obviously appeal,” Trump said of Coughenour’s decision.
Trump’s executive order had directed U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize 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 find it difficult to understand how any member of the bar can say unequivocally that this order is constitutional,” the judge told a U.S. Justice Department lawyer defending Trump’s order. “This leaves me perplexed.”
The states argued that Trump’s order violated the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that everyone born in the United States is a citizen.
“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I cannot recall another case where the question asked was as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour told about Trump’s policies.
Coughenour’s order, announced following a short hearing in a packed courtroom as other judges looked on, blocks Trump’s policies from being enforced nationally for 14 days while the judge is considering whether to issue a long-term preliminary injunction.
Under Trump’s order, any child born in the United States after February 19 whose mother and father are not U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents would be subject to deportation and would not be able to obtain a security number social security, various government benefits and the possibility of obtaining a social security number. grow old to work legally.
“Under this order, babies born today do not count as U.S. citizens,” Lane Polozola, an assistant attorney general for Washington state, told the judge, referring to Trump’s policy.
Justice Department lawyer Brett Shumate argued that Trump’s action was constitutional and called any court order blocking it “grossly inappropriate.” But before Shumate even finished responding to Polozola’s argument, Coughenour said he signed the temporary restraining order.
“DEFEND VIGOROUSLY”
The Justice Department plans to file documents next week urging the judge not to issue a longer injunction, Shumate said. A Justice Department spokesperson said it plans to continue to “vigorously defend” Trump’s order.
“We look forward to making a substantive argument to the court and to the American people, who desperately need to see our nation’s laws enforced,” the spokesperson said.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said he saw no reason to expect the Justice Department would succeed in overturning Coughenour’s decision on appeal, even if the case were brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three appointed justices. by Trump.
“You are an American citizen if you were born on American soil, period,” Brown said. “Nothing the president can do will change that.”
More than 150,000 newborns would be denied citizenship each year if Trump’s order stands, according to Democratic-led states.
Since Trump signed the order, at least six lawsuits have been filed challenging it, most by civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states.
Democratic state attorneys general said the understanding of the Constitution’s citizenship clause was cemented 127 years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that children born in the United States to noncitizen parents were entitled to American citizenship.
The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868 following the American Civil War, overturned the Supreme Court’s famous 1857 Dred Scott decision, which held that the Constitution’s protections did not apply to enslaved black people.
In a brief filed Wednesday evening, the Justice Department called the order “an integral part” of Trump’s efforts “to address this country’s broken immigration system and the ongoing crisis at the southern border.”
Thirty-six of Trump’s Republican allies in the U.S. House of Representatives separately introduced legislation Tuesday to restrict automatic citizenship to only children born to U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
