Federal judge blocks Trump order on birthright citizenship

Michael Macagnone, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 23, 2025

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WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington state on Thursday temporarily blocked, nationwide, President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship, the first legal roadblock in a flurry of high-profile initiatives in his first days back in the White House.

The ruling came after a hearing in a challenge from Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon seeking to invalidate Trump’s order, which argued that the 14th Amendment allowed him to define as noncitizens a child who is born in America to undocumented and temporary lawful immigrants.

Judge John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, a Ronald Reagan appointee, issued a temporary restraining order after finding the executive order likely violates the 14th Amendment and federal immigration law that guarantees birthright citizenship.

The Trump order points to language in the 14th Amendment that required people to be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. It directs federal government agencies not to issue citizenship documents to anyone born where at least one parent is not a lawful permanent resident or citizen.

Coughenour called the executive order “blatantly unconstitutional,” according to the Seattle Times. The restraining order stops the government from following the executive order pending further action from the judge.

The states argued in the lawsuit that Trump had exceeded the Constitution with his executive order.

“The President has no authority to amend the Constitution or supersede the Citizenship Clause’s grant of citizenship to individuals born in the United States. Nor is he empowered by any other constitutional provision or law to determine who shall or shall not be granted United States citizenship at birth,” the complaint said.

Trump’s effort could affect hundreds of thousands of infants in the coming years, the states said. In 2022, about 400,000 American citizens were born to families who fall into the same categories as in the order.

Those infants would be “undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many will be stateless – that is, citizens of no country at all,” the complaint said.

Unless Trump’s order was stopped, those in question would lose access to Social Security benefits, government documents and other protections, the states contend.

The states argued that this would increase their own costs and hurt state coffers for federal programs the children would otherwise be entitled to, such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The suit was one of a flood of lawsuits filed following issuance of the executive order, including one from another coalition of states filed in Massachusetts, one from immigrant and civil rights advocacy groups and expectant parents filed in Maryland, another from groups led by the ACLU in New Hampshire, and another brought by expectant parents in California.