SEATTLE In what is expected to be a protracted legal struggle over the new administration’s agenda, a federal district court judge temporarily stopped President Donald Trump’s executive order on Thursday that sought to limit birthright citizenship.
After 25 minutes of arguments, Senior U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour issued an order from the bench prohibiting the policy’s implementation for 14 days. While the case is pending, there will be another briefing on a preliminary injunction to permanently prohibit the executive order.
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“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades,” Coughenour, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, stated. “I can’t think of another instance when the question is as obvious as this one. This directive is obviously unconstitutional.
Before the directive is set to go into effect in late February, four states—Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon—have attempted to halt it. The order, which aims to restrict automatic birthright citizenship to children of U.S. citizens and green card holders, is being challenged as illegal in five lawsuits filed by Democratic attorneys general and immigrant rights organizations.
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution has traditionally been interpreted to automatically provide citizenship to anybody born in the United States, with the exception of foreign diplomats’ children. The amendment starts with the following sentence: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside. This is a response to the Dred Scott ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857, which held that people descended from slaves were not citizens.
In a court filing, attorneys for the four states stated that President Trump and the federal government now aim to enforce a contemporary version of Dred Scott. However, nothing in the Constitution gives the President, government agencies, or anybody else the power to place restrictions on granting U.S. citizenship to people who were born here.
The attorneys contend that if Trump’s order is put into effect, the plaintiff states would no longer receive federal funds for initiatives including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The lawyers stated that in addition to the significant financial losses, the states would have to quickly adjust how they administer those programs to reflect the change.
“Children born in the Plaintiff States will soon be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many will be stateless unless a temporary restraining order is issued,” the attorneys added. They will not be allowed to return to the United States or travel freely. As they get older, they won’t be able to get a Social Security number (SSN) or work legally. They will not be allowed to run for office, serve on juries, or cast ballots. Additionally, as members of a newly formed underclass in the US, they will be positioned in unstable and insecure situations.
The birthright citizenship order is a key component of Trump’s efforts to remedy the country’s flawed immigration system and the ongoing southern border issue, Justice Department attorneys told Coughenour in their briefs.
They contend that in addition to Trump having the power to issue the order, the states do not have the legal capacity to file a lawsuit on the basis of their purported economic harms.
According to Justice Department lawyer Brad Rosenberg, a third party, including a state, has no legally cognizable interest in the federal government recognizing a particular person’s citizenship, let alone in the economic rewards or responsibilities that are solely associated with that status.
Rosenberg foreshadows some of the arguments that might be raised as this and other cases proceed, even though the majority of the Justice Department’s filing concentrates on technical arguments regarding the states’ inability to sue: how, in the Justice Department’s opinion, courts have been misinterpreting the 14th Amendment for more than a century.
According to Rosenberg, there is ample historical evidence that children of non-resident immigrants are subject to foreign powers and, as a result, are not under US jurisdiction. They also do not have a constitutional claim to birthright citizenship.
The case will probably be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the end. “We will vigorously defend President Trump’s EO, which correctly interprets the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” a Justice Department official stated Thursday. We are eager to offer the Court and the American people with a complete merits argument.