Topline
A federal judge handed down the third ruling against President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship in the U.S., meaning the president’s executive order against the right to citizenship will remain blocked until the Supreme Court, which recently side-stepped the matter, steps in.
The ruling was issued Friday afternoon. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Key Facts
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin said Friday Trump’s executive order calling for the end of birthright citizenship, which grants citizenship to children born in the U.S. regardless of their parents’ immigration status, was unconstitutional.
Sorokin’s decision joins a ruling made by an appellate court Thursday, when an injunction granted to over 20 states challenging Trump was kept in place.
Sorokin said the states are “nearly certain to prevail” in claiming Trump’s executive order violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which defines citizenship for those born or naturalized in the U.S.
The judge also found the states would face losses of federal funding, an increasingly common tactic used by the Trump administration to establish its agenda, and “serious administrative upheaval” if an injunction against the executive order was not put in place.
Sorokin added the Trump administration “are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment” noting there is “no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question.”
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Big Number
255,000. Without birthright citizenship, that is roughly the average number of children who would be born each year without citizenship, according to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute and Penn State’s Population Research Institute. Estimates also found the unauthorized population would grow to 2.7 million by 2045 and 5.4 million by 2075.
Key Background
Shortly after taking office, Trump signed the executive order attempting to deny birthright citizenship to children whose mothers were unlawfully present in the U.S. and whose fathers were not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of their birth. After a coalition of states legally challenged the president in the months after, the Supreme Court ruled in June that lower courts cannot block nationwide policies and could only pass down rulings that provide relief to the parties who brought the lawsuit, setting up a precedent for future executive orders that states look to challenge. However, the high court did not explicitly address whether Trump’s birthri