Federal Judge Deals Another Blow to Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order

For the second time this week, a federal judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction to block President Trump’s effort to end automatic citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants.

The decision, handed down on Thursday morning in Seattle, came a day after a judge in Maryland issued a nationwide injunction against President Trump’s executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship.

The executive order is facing several legal challenges, and the injunction on Thursday, by Judge John C. Coughenour of the Western District of Washington, came in a case brought by four state attorneys general.

“The constitution is not something with which the government may play policy games,” Judge Coughenour said on Thursday. “If the government wants to change the exceptional American grant of birthright citizenship, it needs to amend the Constitution itself.”

On Jan. 23, Judge Coughenour had issued a temporary restraining order, and he had scheduled the hearing for Thursday to consider a preliminary injunction to replace the temporary one, which was to expire after 14 days.

A hearing in another lawsuit challenging the order is scheduled for Friday in Massachusetts.

The president’s order, one of several issued in the first few hours of his administration to curtail immigration, declared that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants after Feb. 19 would no longer be treated as citizens.

The order would also extend to babies born to mothers who are in the country legally but temporarily, such as tourists or temporary workers, if the father is not a citizen.

Birthright citizenship is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, and ending that right would, according to legal scholars, require amending the Constitution. But Mr. Trump has campaigned against immigration, and promised to take action on birthright citizenship.

Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the order, including the one in Seattle by the attorneys general from Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, and the one in Maryland that was brought by two nonprofit organizations.

The amendment — that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States” — has long been interpreted to apply to every baby born in the United States, with some limited exceptions, including children of accredited foreign diplomats.

Federal courts have never recognized further limitations on birthright citizenship.

In the case before Judge Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, the four state attorneys general argued that Mr. Trump’s order would deny rights and benefits to more than 150,000 children born each year and leave some of them stateless.