A bid to block Trump's cancellation of birthright citizenship is in federal court
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A federal judge in Seattle is set to hear the first arguments Thursday in a multi-state lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship regardless of the parents' immigration status.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour scheduled the session to consider the request from Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington. The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrants rights groups across the country. The suits include personal testimonies from attorneys general who are U.S. citizens by birthright, and names pregnant women who are afraid their children won't become U.S. citizens.
The order, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day, is slated to take effect on Feb. 19. It could impact hundreds of thousands of people born in the country, according to one of the lawsuits. In 2022, there were about 255,000 births of citizen children to mothers living in the country illegally and about 153,000 births to two such parents, according to the four-state suit filed in Seattle.
The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them. The lawsuits argue that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship for people born and naturalized in the U.S., and states have been interpreting the amendment that way for a century.
