Federal Judge Halts Trump’s Executive Move to End Birthright Citizenship

In a significant legal development, a federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to noncitizen parents. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour issued the ruling in response to lawsuits filed by Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon, which contend that the 14th Amendment and established Supreme Court case law collectively affirm the principle of birthright citizenship.

This ruling comes amidst a wave of legal challenges, with 22 states and various immigrant rights organizations filing multiple lawsuits across the nation. These cases are bolstered by personal testimonies from attorneys general who are U.S. citizens by birthright, along with accounts from expectant mothers fearing that their children may be denied citizenship.

Signed on Inauguration Day, Trump’s executive order is set to take effect on February 19. Legal experts warn that it could affect hundreds of thousands of children born in the U.S. In fact, roughly 255,000 births of citizen children to unauthorized immigrant mothers were documented in 2022, alongside around 153,000 births to parents both living in the country illegally.

The U.S. is among approximately 30 countries that adhere to birthright citizenship, a principle known as jus soli or “right of the soil,” predominantly seen in the Americas, including Canada and Mexico.

The lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment has guaranteed citizenship to individuals born in the U.S. for over a century. Ratified in 1868 following the Civil War, it states, “All persons born or naturalized 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 challenges this, claiming that children of noncitizens do not fall under U.S. jurisdiction, thereby instructing federal agencies to disregard citizenship for those without at least one parent who is a citizen.

Historical context is essential. A landmark case in 1898 determined that Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants, was indeed a U.S. citizen, despite federal attempts to deny him reentry under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Critics of the current policy assert that this precedent should only apply to parents who are legal immigrants, leaving ambiguity for those with unauthorized status.

In light of the executive order, several attorneys general shared their personal ties to the issue. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, the nation’s first Chinese American elected attorney general, expressed that the lawsuit was deeply personal for him. “There is no legitimate legal debate on this question. But the fact that Trump is dead wrong will not prevent him from inflicting serious harm right now on American families like my own,” Tong stated recently.

One poignant case within the lawsuits focuses on a pregnant woman identified as “Carmen,” who has lived in the U.S. for more than 15 years and is pursuing a visa application that could lead to permanent residency. “Stripping children of the ‘priceless treasure’ of citizenship is a grave injury,” the lawsuit asserts, emphasizing that such actions deny children full membership in U.S. society to which they are rightfully entitled.