A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order seeking to unilaterally redefine the 14th Amendment and federal law by denying citizenship to certain American-born children of immigrants.
District Judge John Coughenour, presiding over a lawsuit brought by several states seeking to overturn Trump’s order, delivered a blistering criticism of the president’s “blatantly unconstitutional” action from the bench in a Seattle courtroom on Thursday.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” said the Ronald Reagan appointee, according to The Seattle Times.
“There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say where were the judges, where were the lawyers?” he said.
“Frankly I have difficulty understanding how a member of the Bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order,” Coughenour continued. “It just boggles my mind.”
The judge granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Trump’s order from taking effect nationally while the case brought by Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington plays out in court.
“This unconstitutional and un-American executive order will hopefully never take effect thanks to the actions states are taking on behalf of their residents,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement.
“Birthright citizenship makes clear that citizenship cannot be conditioned on one’s race, ethnicity or where their parents came from,” he added. “It’s the law of our nation, recognized by generations of jurists, lawmakers, and presidents, until President Trump’s illegal action. That’s why we’ve stepped in to protect Washingtonians from harm.”
The lawsuit is one of at least five legal challenges playing out in federal courts across the country.
Eighteen state attorneys general and officials in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco are also suing the Trump administration to block what they have called the “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”
Several pregnant women and immigrant advocacy groups representing families and expecting mothers have also launched lawsuits to overturn the order.
Under the sweeping terms of Trump’s order, children born in the United States after February 17 can be denied citizenship “when that person’s mother was unlawfully present” or “lawful but temporary,” and if the father “was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause plainly states that “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.”
In the Trump administration’s first court filing responding to the case in Seattle, Justice Department lawyers called the executive order an “integral part of President Trump’s recent actions, pursuant to his significant authority in the immigration field, to address this nation’s broken immigration.”
Trump administration lawyers said the “rush to the courthouse for extraordinary relief is fundamentally flawed.”
“These lawsuits are nothing more than an extension of the Left’s resistance — and the Trump Administration is ready to face them in court,” White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement to The Independent.
Trump's birthright citizenship EO is halted for now. Today a judge granted our temporary restraining order nationwide, saying he had not seen an order this blatantly unconstitutional in 40 years on the bench. We'll continue fighting for Washingtonians' freedoms. pic.twitter.com/ovl0jKmJGO
— Attorney General Nick Brown (@AGOWA) January 23, 2025
In a federal complaint filed on Tuesday, attorneys general for the four states argued that Trump’s order would unlawfully strip more than 12,000 newborn children each month of U.S. citizenship that is entitled to them under federal law and the 14th Amendment.
Children denied citizenship “will be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many will be stateless — that is, citizens of no country at all,” they wrote.
“They will lose eligibility for myriad federal benefits programs. They will lose their right to travel freely and re-enter the United States. They will lose their ability to obtain a Social Security number ... and work lawfully,” the plaintiffs continued.
“They will lose their right to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices,” they added. “And they will be placed into lifelong positions of instability and insecurity as part of a new underclass in the United States.”
Without the Constitution’s guarantee of their citizenship, thousands of children “will lose their ability to fully and fairly be a part of American society as a citizen with all its benefits and privileges,” they wrote.
