A federal judge in Seattle, Washington State, Judge John Coughenour, an appointee of former President, Ronald Reagan, on Thursday, temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending automatic birthright citizenship, describing it as “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“I have been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case whether the question presented was as clear. Where were the lawyers” when the decision to sign the executive order was made, the judge asked.
President Trump, on Monday, signed an order declaring that future children born to undocumented immigrants would no longer be treated as citizens.
The order specifically asserts that the children of non-citizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It excludes those whose mothers were not legally in the United States and whose fathers were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, and people whose mothers were in the country legally but on a temporary basis and whose fathers were not citizens or legal permanent residents.
Earlier on Tuesday, eighteen states and two cities, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., challenged the order at a Federal District Court in Massachusetts. They argued that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment is “automatic” and that neither the president nor Congress has the constitutional authority to revise it. Four other states filed a second lawsuit in the Western District of Washington.
