A United States federal judge temporarily blocked on Thursday the president’s executive order donald trump what does it say end to the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship regardless of the immigration status of the parents.
US District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argue that the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court jurisprudence have entrenched birthright citizenship.
The case is one of five lawsuits filed by 22 states and several immigrant rights groups across the country. The lawsuits include personal testimony from attorneys general who are birthright U.S. citizens and name pregnant women who fear their children will not become American citizens.
Shortly afterward, Trump said his administration would appeal the ruling. “Obviously we will appeal it”the Republican declared to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House.
The order, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day, is scheduled to go into effect on February 19. It could affect hundreds of thousands of people born in the country, according to one of the lawsuits. In 2022, there were about 255,000 births of citizen children to mothers living in the country illegally and about 153,000 births to two of those parents, according to the four-state lawsuit filed in Seattle.
The United States is one of the 30 countries where citizenship by birth applies (the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil”). Most are found in America, and Canada and Mexico are among them.
The lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees citizenship to people born and naturalized in that country, and states have been interpreting the amendment that way for a century.
Ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, the amendment reads: “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.”
Trump’s order affirms that children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and directs federal agencies not to recognize citizenship to children who do not have at least one parent who is a citizen.
In 1898 there was a key case involving birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court held that Wong Kim Arkwho was born in San Francisco, the son of Chinese immigrants, was a US citizen because he was born in the country. After a trip abroad, the federal government denied him reentry on the grounds that he was not a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
But some advocates of immigration restrictions have argued that that case clearly applies to children born to parents who were legal immigrants. They say it’s less clear whether it applies to children born to parents living in the country illegally.
One of the lawsuits seeking to block the executive order includes the case of a pregnant woman, identified as “Carmen,” who is not a citizen but has lived in the United States for more than 15 years and has a pending visa application that could lead her to obtain permanent residence.
“Stripping children of ‘priceless treasure’ of citizenship is a serious offense,” the lawsuit says. “It denies them the full membership in American society to which they are entitled.”
(With information from AP)
