Judge blocks Donald Trump’s efforts to terminate US citizenship at birth

Open the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what the 2024 US elections mean for Washington and the world

A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s executive order denying US citizenship to children born in the country to illegal immigrants, dealing a blow to an immigration crackdown that is a top priority of his second presidency.

John Coughenour, a US District Judge in Washington state, on Thursday called the policy “grossly unconstitutional,” issuing a temporary restraining order halting the president’s ban, according to media reports.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed Tuesday by four Democratic attorneys general led by Washington state — one of several legal challenges quickly filed against the order. Trump It was signed Monday, just hours after he was sworn in as president.

Coughenour’s decision represents the first legal setback for the Trump administration just three days after his return to the White House. The wave of executive orders signed by the president focused many of them on… Immigration – launched what would be fierce and protracted legal battles.

Other Democratic attorneys general as well as civil rights groups this week filed separate lawsuits to invalidate the birthright ban, all alleging similar violations of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that all “persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States.” “United.”

“If the unconstitutional and un-American system is allowed to stand, it will result in thousands of Washington’s newborns and children losing their ability to fully and fairly participate in American society as citizens, despite the Constitution’s guarantee,” the Washington Attorney General’s Office said. of their nationality.”

Oregon, Arizona and Illinois joined the lawsuit.

Instead, Trump’s order argued that the 14th Amendment does not “universally extend citizenship to every person born” in the United States.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this week, she said the lawsuits were part of the “left’s resistance” and that the administration would confront them in court.

The Justice Department said in a memo on Wednesday that the order was “part and parcel of President Trump’s recent actions, pursuant to his significant immigration authority, to address this nation’s broken immigration system and the ongoing crisis in the United States.” Southern border“.