A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States.
Calling it 'blatantly unconstitutional', US District Judge John Coughenour issued a temporary restraining order at the urging of four Democratic-led states - Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon - preventing the administration from enforcing the order. The development comes just three days after Trump signed the executive order on his first day back in office.
Trump's executive order had directed US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither their mother nor father is a US citizen or lawful permanent resident.
"I am having trouble understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this order is constitutional," the judge told a US Justice Department lawyer defending Trump's order. "It just boggles my mind."
"I've been on the bench for over four decades. I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order," Coughenour said of Trump's policy.
The order, slated to take effect on February 19, could impact hundreds of thousands of people born in the country, according to one of the lawsuits. In 2022, there were about 2,55,000 births of citizen children to mothers living in the country illegally and about 1,53,000 births to two such parents, according to the four-state suit filed in Seattle.
The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of 'right of the soil' — is applied.
Trump's executive order prompted attorneys general to share their personal connections to birthright citizenship. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a US citizen by birthright and the nation's first Chinese American elected attorney general, said the lawsuit was personal for him.
"There is no legitimate legal debate on this question. But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own," Tong said.
-With agency inputs
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