Washington — A fourth federal judge on Thursday blocked President Trump’s executive order seeking to terminate birthright citizenship, joining the growing number of courts that have prevented the president from implementing his directive while a slew of legal challenges continue.
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, who sits on the federal district court in Massachusetts, said that a group of 19 states and the District of Columbia, as well as two nonprofit organizations, are likely to prevail on the merits of their claims. The challengers have argued that Mr. Trump’s executive order, issued on his first day in office, violates the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“The Constitution confers birthright citizenship broadly, including to persons within the categories described in the EO,” Sorokin, appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote in a 31-page decision.
Sorokin joins federal judges in Maryland, Washington and New Hampshire that have issued preliminary injunctions blocking the Trump administration from enforcing the birthright citizenship executive order. The Justice Department has appealed two of those decisions to federal appeals courts in San Francisco and Richmond, Virginia.
At least eight lawsuits have been filed in courts from coast to coast that challenge Mr. Trump’s directive. His executive order came as part of an immigration crackdown that he promised on the campaign trail. It denies U.S. citizenship to children born to mothers who are in the country unlawfully or temporarily on visas, and whose fathers are neither citizens nor lawful residents.
The decisions from the federal judges against the Trump administration rely on an 1898 Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, in which the court held that a man born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a citizen by virtue of the Constitution.
Sorokin, too, pointed to that 127-year-old decision, writing in his opinion that it “leaves no room” for the Trump administration’s proposed reading of the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause.
He noted that the administration can seek to revisit that case, but that would be a matter for the Supreme Court.
“The rule and reasoning from that decision were reiterated and applied in later decisions, adopted by Congress as a matter of federal statutory law in 1940, and followed consistently by the Executive Branch for the past 100 years, at least,” Sorokin wrote.
Sorokin was considering the two requests for preliminary injunctions brought by the states, the nonprofit organizations and a pregnant woman whose baby is due in March. The woman, identified in court filings as O. Doe, lives in Massachusetts and plans to be in the U.S. when she gives birth. The woman is in the country with temporary protected status and the baby’s father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, according to court filings.
Pointing to the nonprofits and expectant mother, Sorokin said that what is at stake “is a bedrock constitutional guarantee and all of its attendant privileges. The loss of birthright citizenship — even if temporary, and later restored at the conclusion of litigation — has cascading effects that would cut across a young child’s life (and the life of that child’s family), very likely leaving permanent scars.”
Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.
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