Judge Blocks Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order
A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked President Trump's executive order seeking to terminate birthright citizenship. This ruling adds to the growing number of legal challenges that have prevented the Trump administration from enforcing the order.
The judge ruled that a group of states, the District of Columbia, and nonprofit organizations are likely to prevail on the merits of their claims. They argue that the order, issued on Trump's first day in office, violates the 14th Amendment.
The Justice Department has appealed similar rulings in other courts.
He is not a king, and he cannot rewrite the Constitution with the stroke of a pen," said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
At least eight lawsuits have been filed in courts across the country challenging Mr. Trump's directive. His executive order came as part of an immigration crackdown that he promised on the campaign trail. It denies U.S. citizenship to children born to mothers who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily on visas, and whose fathers are neither citizens nor lawful residents.
The decisions from the federal judges against the Trump administration rely on an 1898 Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in which the court held that a man born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a citizen by virtue of the Constitution.
Sorokin also pointed to this precedent, writing in his opinion that it "leaves no room" for the Trump administration's proposed reading of the Constitution's Citizenship Clause.
He noted that the administration can seek to revisit that case, but that would be a matter for the Supreme Court.
"The rule and reasoning from that decision were reiterated and applied in later decisions, adopted by Congress as a matter of federal statutory law in 1940, and followed consistently by the Executive Branch for the past 100 years, at least," Sorokin wrote.
Sorokin's ruling considered two requests for preliminary injunctions brought by the states, the nonprofit organizations, and a pregnant woman whose baby is due in March. The woman, identified in court filings as O. Doe, lives in Massachusetts and plans to be in the U.S. when she gives birth. The woman is in the country with temporary protected status and the baby's father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
Pointing to the nonprofits and expectant mother, Sorokin said that what is at stake "is a bedrock constitutional guarantee and all of its attendant privileges. The loss of birthright citizenship — even if temporary, and later restored at the conclusion of litigation — has cascading effects that would cut across a young child's life (and the life of that child's family), very likely leaving permanent scars.