A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order that would have ended birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of immigrants without legal status.
The order marks the first big loss for Trump, three days after taking the oath of office, and the temporary block applies to the entire country.
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argued that Trump’s executive order violates the 14th Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act. That measure specifies that the law does not empower the president to determine who should or should not be granted U.S. citizenship at birth.
According to the Associated Press, Coughenour called the executive mandate, a “blatantly unconstitutional order.”
Attorneys general in 18 other states also filed a similar lawsuit Tuesday in federal district court in Massachusetts. Thursday’s ruling comes from one of five suits filed on behalf of 22 states.
Trump’s order would exclude citizenship for U.S.- born people whose parents were not here legally, and people who were born to parents who were in the country legally but on a temporary basis. It would also bar federal agencies from recognizing citizenship for those people. Barring the legal challenges, it was scheduled to take effect Feb. 19.
The suit, brought by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, along with three other attorneys general, was seeking a temporary restraining order, which Coughenour ordered on Thursday. It is also seeking to invalidate the executive order and to enjoin any actions taken to implement it.
The attorneys general write in the suit that if birthright citizenship ends, states will lose federal funding to programs, including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and foster care and adoption assistance programs. All of those programs rely in part on immigration status, according to Raoul’s office.
