Presidents ‘are not kings’: Trump faces legal headwinds to birthright citizenship order

People line up against a border wall as they wait to apply for asylum after crossing the border from Mexico, Tuesday, July 11, 2023, near Yuma, Ariz.

Pushback against President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration orders gathered steam Thursday with a court hearing the first of a set of lawsuits filed by a coalition of at least 22 US states to block his bid to end birthright citizenship. Many legal experts see the crackdown on immigrants as unconstitutional and predict a potentially protracted legal dispute.

A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional”.

It was the first setback among a spate of lawsuits filed by multiple US states and advocacy groups seeking to challenge the order.

On Monday, Trump ordered federal agencies to refuse to recognise the citizenship of children born in the United States if they do not have at least one parent who is a citizen or legal permanent US resident.

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With the ink on Trump’s numerous executive orders barely dry, 22 US states, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and California, came together in a dramatic show of political defiance, serving Trump with a barrage of lawsuits.

The cities of San Francisco and Washington, DC, joined the states in filing a complaint in the federal district court in Massachusetts.

Separate lawsuits were filed by immigrants’ rights groups and a pregnant woman who has lived in the United States for 15 years and is seeking permanent residency.


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