US federal judge blocks Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship

A US federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump from implementing an executive order denying the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the country, news agency Reuters reported on Thursday. The judge called the order “blatantly unconstitutional”.

Honouring the request of four Democratic-led states, US District Judge John Coughenour issued a temporary order restraining the Trump administration from implementing the order. Trump, who took office for a second time on January 20, had signed the order on Monday, which was his first day in office.

February 20 is the deadline for termination of birthright citizenship under Trump’s executive order.

The federal judge’s order came just a day after Democratic-led states and civil rights groups filed a bunch of lawsuits challenging Trump’s bid to roll back birthright citizenship in an early attempt by his opponents to block his agenda in court.

After his inauguration on Monday, Trump, a Republican, ordered US agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither their mother or father is a US citizen or legal permanent resident.

Putting a restriction on the order, Justice Coughenour said, “I am having trouble understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this order is constitutional”.

“It just boggles my mind. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” the judge told a US Justice Department lawyer defending the president’s order.

Democratic-ruled states like Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon maintained that Trump’s order was in violation of the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment. It provisions that anyone born in the US is a citizen of the country.

Two similar cases were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organisations and an expectant mother, in the hours after Trump signed the executive order, kicking off the first major court fight of his administration.

The lawsuits take aim at a central piece of Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown. If allowed to stand, Trump’s order would for the first time deny more than 150,000 children born annually in the US the right to citizenship, said the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.

“President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights,” she said in a statement.

Following the birthright citizenship curtailing order by Trump, there was a rush to give birth in the US to beat the ban deadline.

Indian couples were dialling up doctors and lined up at maternity clinics for C-sections before February 20. One Indian-origin gynaecologist said he fielded calls from around 20 such couples.

Notably, a vast number of other lawsuits filed in this direction are also pending across the US by civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states.

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