Judge to Weigh Challenge to Trump Birthright Citizenship Order

Four Democratic-led states will urge a federal judge in Seattle on Thursday to block President Donald Trump's administration from enforcing the Republican's executive order curtailing the right to automatic birthright citizenship in the United States.

The executive order has already become the subject of five lawsuits by civil rights groups and Democratic attorneys general from 22 states, who call it flagrantly unconstitutional.

Senior District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle is scheduled to hear arguments on a request by Democratic state attorneys general from Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon for a temporary restraining order that would prevent Trump's administration from carrying out a key component of his immigration crackdown.

That executive order, which Trump signed on Monday after taking office, directs agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. if neither their mother nor father is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.

In a brief filed late Wednesday, the Department of Justice described the order as an "integral part" of the president's efforts "to address this nation's broken immigration system and the ongoing crisis at the southern border."

The lawsuit filed in Seattle has been progressing the fastest of the five cases brought over the executive order. It has been assigned to Coughenour, an appointee of Republican former President Ronald Reagan.

Absent judicial intervention, any children born after Feb. 19 whose mothers or fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents would be subject to deportation and would be prevented from obtaining Social Security numbers, various government benefits and the ability as they get older to work lawfully.

More than 150,000 newborn children would be denied citizenship annually if Trump's order is allowed to stand, the Democratic-led states argue.

The lawsuits argue that Trump's executive order violates the right enshrined in the citizenship clause of the Constitution's 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen.

Democratic state attorneys general say that understanding of the citizenship clause was cemented 127 years ago when the Supreme Court held that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to U.S. citizenship.

The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 following the Civil War and overturned the Supreme Court's notorious 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared that the Constitution did not apply to enslaved Black people.

But the Justice Department in its brief argued that the 14th Amendment had never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born in the country, and that the Supreme Court's 1898 ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark concerned only children of permanent residents.

The Justice Department said the four states' case also "flunks multiple threshold hurdles." It said only individuals, not states, can pursue claims under the citizenship clause and that the states lack legal standing to sue over Trump's order.