STORY: A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing an executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States, calling it “clearly unconstitutional.”
The judge issued the temporary restraining order at the request of four Democratic-led states, including Washington, where Nick Brown is attorney general.
“This is about people who the president of the United States is trying to deny their legal right to be citizens. And babies are being born today, tomorrow, every day, all over the country. And so we have to Now the states have to go back to what has been the law of the land for generations, that if you are born on American soil, that’s what the president can do Will not change.
In his executive order, Trump directed U.S. agencies to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. if both parents are not U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.
The judge said the approach “boggles the mind.”
The states argued that Trump’s order violated the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
According to Democratic-led states, if Trump’s order is allowed to stand, more than 150,000 newborns will be denied citizenship annually.
Several other lawsuits are pending across the country by civil rights groups and the Democratic attorneys general of 22 states, who call Trump’s order a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Thirty-six of Trump’s Republican allies in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday introduced separate legislation that would limit automatic citizenship to children born to citizens or legal permanent residents.
