US District Judge John Coughenour said he couldn’t remember seeing a case that challenged violated the constitution so clearly.
A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump’s executive order redefining birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”. The decision came during the first hearing in a multi-state effort challenging the order.
US District Judge John Coughenour repeatedly interrupted a Justice Department lawyer during arguments to ask how he could consider the order constitutional. When the attorney, Brett Shumate, said he’d like a chance to explain it in a full briefing, Coughenour told him the hearing was his chance.
The temporary restraining order sought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington was the first to get a hearing before a judge and applies nationally.
The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrant rights groups across the country. The suits include personal testimonies from attorney generals who are US citizens by birthright, and names pregnant women who are afraid their children won’t become US citizens.
Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, grilled the DOJ attorneys, saying the order “boggles the mind.”
“This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour told Shumate. The judge said he’s been on the bench for more than four decades, and he couldn’t remember seeing another case where the action challenged so clearly violated the constitution.
The US is among approximately 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, with Canada and Mexico among them.
The lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees citizenship for people born and naturalised in the US, and states have been interpreting the amendment that way for a century.
Ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, the amendment says: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump’s order asserts that the children of noncitizens are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and orders federal agencies to not recognize citizenship for children who don’t have at least one parent who is a citizen.
