Fourth Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order
On Thursday, a federal judge in Boston blocked an executive action from President Donald Trump which would have ended birthright citizenship for children of parents in the U.S. who are illegally present. He became the fourth judge to block the order.
Leo Sorokin, U.S. district judge, issued his ruling three days after U.S. district Judge Joseph Laplante blocked the executive order in New Hampshire. Similar rulings were also made in Seattle and Maryland.
Sorokin stated in a 31 page ruling that “the Constitution confers citizenship by birthright broadly, including those who fall within the categories” described in the executive order of the president.
The Boston case, filed by Democrat Attorneys General of 18 States, is one of nine lawsuits that challenge the birthright citizenship law.
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The attorneys general issued a statement saying that “President Trump might believe he’s above the law but today’s preliminary order sends a message clear: He isn’t a king and he can’t rewrite the Constitution at the stroke of his pen.”
U.S. district judge John C. Coughenour stated that the Trump administration attempted to ignore the Constitution and the president tried to change it through an executive order.
A federal judge from Maryland has issued a nationwide suspension of the order. The case involved a similar but separate case between immigrants’ rights groups and women who are pregnant whose unborn children may be affected. The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it will appeal the ruling to 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the Boston case, attorneys general of 18 states, as well as the cities San Francisco and Washington, D.C., requested that Sorokin issue a preliminary order. The injunction is likely to remain in effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
They claim that birthright citizenship is “enshrined” in the Constitution and that Trump has no authority to issue this order. This, they say, would be a “flagrantly illegal attempt to strip hundreds or thousands of American-born kids of their citizenship because of their parentage.”
The states also claim that Trump’s orders would deny them funding to “provide essential service” – from foster care, health care, for low income children, or “early intervention for infants and toddlers with disabilities, as well as early interventions for students with disabilities.”
The 14th Amendment of the Constitution is at the core of these lawsuits. It was ratified after the Civil War in 1868 and the Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling. The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision determined that Scott, a man who was enslaved, was not a citizen, despite living in a state which outlawed slavery.
The Trump administration asserts that children born to noncitizens do not fall under the “jurisdiction” of the United States, and are therefore not eligible for citizenship.
Attorneys for states claim that this is true and has been recognized ever since the adoption of the amendment, including in a 1898 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. United States v. Wong Kim Ark held that only the children born in the U.S. to diplomats who are loyal to another country, enemies who were present during hostile occupation, those born on foreign ships, and members of sovereign Native American Tribes did not automatically become citizens.
Birthright citizenship, or the principle of “right of soil”, is used in the U.S. Canada and Mexico, among others, are located in the Americas.
Sorokin’s order also applies to a similar case brought by Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston on behalf of expecting mothers whose babies would be affected the executive order by President Obama.
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