A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship.
Ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour in a case brought by Washington and three other states is the first in what will undoubtedly be a long legal battle over the constitutionality of this order.
Coughenour called the ordinance “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“I have a hard time understanding how a member of the bar could clearly state that this is a constitutional order,” the judge told a Trump administration lawyer. “It’s making me dizzy.”
Coughenour’s decision came after 25 minutes of arguments between Washington state lawyers and the Justice Department.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Nick Brown, along with peers from Oregon, Arizona and Illinois, sued the Trump administration over the order. Shortly after filing the lawsuit, the states asked Coughenour to issue a transient restraining order preventing the executive action from taking effect.
Eighteen other states have filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts. These states did not file a motion for a preliminary injunction.
Trump signed the executive order shortly after taking office on Monday. It would end birthright citizenship for children born to a mother and father who are not U.S. citizens or lawful enduring residents.
Justice Department’s Brett Shumate argued that the rush to issue an emergency pause is unjustified because the order doesn’t go into effect until February 19. He called the state’s request “extraordinary.”
State attorneys acknowledged that the transient restraining order is extraordinary but warranted. Washington would lose federal dollars used to provide services to citizens, and officials would be forced to modify these service systems.
The order “causes immediate, widespread and serious harm,” said Lane Polozola of the attorney general’s office in Washington. “Citizens are deprived of their most fundamental right, which is the right to have rights.”
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution codified birthright citizenship in 1868. It begins with the words: “All persons born or naturalized within the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
The implementing regulation focuses on the phrase “subject to its jurisdiction”.
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship to all persons born in the United States,” Trump’s order reads. “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship those born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’
Polozola called this interpretation “absurd” and that birthright citizenship is an “inaccessible” right.
Legal precedent has long established birthright citizenship. In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this concept when the justices ruled that Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, was a U.S. citizen.
Coughenour has been a federal judge for decades. Republican President Ronald Reagan nominated him for the position in 1981.
On Thursday, image and sound recordings were not allowed in the courtroom.
Looking ahead, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would have jurisdiction over the case. Democratic presidents have appointed most district court judges. But appeals could also ultimately end the dispute before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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