A federal judge in Seattle yesterday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing an executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the US, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”.
US District Judge John Coughenour at the urging of four Democratic-led states issued a temporary restraining order preventing the administration from enforcing the order, which the Republican president signed on Monday during his first day in office. Trump in his executive order directed US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither their mother nor father is a US citizen or legal permanent resident.
“I am having trouble understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this order is constitutional,” the judge told a US Justice Department lawyer defending Trump’s order. “It just boggles my mind.”
The states – Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon – argued that Trump’s order violated the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the US is a citizen.
“This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” the judge said.
Before Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate had even finished talking, Coughenour said he had signed a temporary restraining order sought by Democratic state attorneys general from the states.
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