A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order abolishing the constitutional right to birthright citizenship regardless of the immigration status of the parents.
U.S. District Judge John C. Cogner argued in a lawsuit brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon that the Fourteenth Amendment and Supreme Court case law solidified birthright citizenship. handed down a judgment.
The lawsuit is one of five filed by 22 states and a number of immigrant rights groups across the country. The lawsuit includes personal testimony from the attorney general, who is a natural-born U.S. citizen, and also names a pregnant woman who is worried that her child will not become a U.S. citizen.
The order was signed by President Trump on Inauguration Day and was scheduled to go into effect on February 19th. One of the lawsuits says hundreds of thousands of people born in the country could be affected. In 2022, about 255,000 citizen children were born to undocumented mothers and 153,000 to two such parents, according to a lawsuit filed in Seattle by four states.
The United States is one of about 30 countries where the principle of birthright citizenship, or “soil rights,” applies. Most are in the Americas, including Canada and Mexico.
The lawsuit argues that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to people born and naturalized in the United States, and that states have interpreted the amendment that way for a century.
The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, states: “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.”
President Trump’s order asserts that noncitizen children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and directs federal agencies to deny citizenship to children with at least one parent who is not a citizen.
An important case concerning birthright citizenship broke out in 1898. The Supreme Court has ruled that Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, is a U.S. citizen because he was born in the country. After traveling abroad, he faced being refused re-entry by the federal government because he was not a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Two experts explain the origins of birthright citizenship and what it will take to change it in the United States.
But some supporters of immigration restrictions argue that this case clearly applies to children born to legal immigrant parents. It is less clear whether the system applies to children born to parents who are in the country illegally.
President Trump’s executive order has prompted attorneys general to share their personal ties to birthright citizenship. For example, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a natural-born U.S. citizen and the country’s first Chinese American to be elected attorney general, said the case was personal to him. .
“There is no valid legal argument on this issue. But the fact that Mr. Trump is completely wrong precludes him from causing immediate serious harm to American families like mine. It’s not a thing,” Tong said this week.
One of the lawsuits aimed at blocking the executive order is that of a pregnant woman identified as “Carmen.” Although the woman is not a citizen, she has lived in the United States for more than 15 years and has a pending visa application for permanent resident status.
“Depriving children of the ‘irreplaceable treasure’ of citizenship is a grave injury,” the lawsuit states. “It denies them full membership in American society with rights.”
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting birthright citizenship, a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.
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