Judge puts temporary hold on Trump’s birthright citizenship order

President Donald Trump’s executive order to bar birthright citizenship from children born to parents in the United States illegally has been challenged in court.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour has issued a temporary block on President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to end birthright citizenship, with the Judge’s ruling citing the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court precedent supporting birthright citizenship regardless of parents’ immigration status.

Driving the news: The case against Trump’s executive order was brought forward by several states, including California, alongside immigrant rights groups. These parties argue that birthright citizenship, a principle enshrined in the 14th Amendment, is a fundamental right upheld by Supreme Court case law.

  • The executive order, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day, was set to take effect on February 19 and posed potential consequences for hundreds of thousands of individuals born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents. Statistics from a lawsuit show around 255,000 births of citizen children to mothers residing in the country illegally in 2022.
  • Birthright citizenship, based on the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil,” is a practice observed in approximately 30 countries worldwide, particularly in the Americas. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 post-Civil War, explicitly outlines that anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen, a principle upheld for over a century.

The big picture: Trump’s order challenges this notion, asserting that children of noncitizens do not fall under U.S. jurisdiction, instructing federal agencies not to acknowledge citizenship for children without at least one parent who is a citizen, a move contested by legal experts and critics.

  • Key legal precedent from the Supreme Court in 1898, concerning Wong Kim Ark, affirmed birthright citizenship by ruling that children born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. However, advocates of immigration restrictions argue that the ruling was intended for children of legal immigrants, debating its applicability to those born to parents in the country illegally.
Total
0
Shares
Related Posts