SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- A federal judge in Seattle, U.S. state of Washington, on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's executive order to rescind birthright citizenship.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Trump's order from taking effect nationwide.
"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," Coughenour said from the bench.
"Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the Bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order," Coughenour added.
The executive order will remain blocked for at least 14 days while lawsuits in Washington state and elsewhere over Trump's action proceed.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown sued Trump and his administration Tuesday, the day after the president issued his executive order ending birthright citizenship. Brown, at a news conference Tuesday, called the order an "unconstitutional, un-American and cruel … attempt to redefine what it means to be an American."
Coughenour's ruling is the first after a flurry of lawsuits was filed this week across the country attempting to block the executive order. Washington was joined in its lawsuit by Oregon, Illinois and Arizona. Eighteen other states filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts, and several immigrant rights groups have sued the administration in federal court in New Hampshire, according to a report by The Seattle Times.
More than a century of legal precedent has recognized the Constitution's 14th Amendment as granting U.S. citizenship to every person born in the country.
The 14th Amendment begins: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
The executive order argues that the 14th Amendment "has always" excluded people whose parents are in the country illegally, because they are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.
Trump's executive order said the government would not issue documents such as passports to children if their parents are not citizens or permanent residents and if their mother was in the country illegally, or even if she was here legally but only temporarily.
The order, Brown said in court filings, would deprive around 150,000 babies a year nationally, 4,000 in Washington, of citizenship.
The Trump administration, in legal filings, argued that the states did not have standing to sue, because they are not the ones that would lose citizenship.
"Birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship," Justice Department lawyers wrote. "Ample historical evidence shows that the children of non-resident aliens are subject to foreign powers - and, thus, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and are not constitutionally entitled to birthright citizenship." ■
