On Jan. 20, hours after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order outlawing birthright citizenship. This means that US-born children of undocumented parents who are not permanent residents by law are not to be granted U.S. citizenship. Trump faced immediate scrutiny, and legal challenges were quickly brought up against him. Five lawsuits brought by 22 states were filed to counteract the executive order. A lawsuit led by Washington State’s Attorney General Nick Brown, along with support from Arizona, Oregon and Illinois, was the first.
Brown’s lawsuit in the U.S. district court came a day after Trump entered office. He announced the legal action in a press conference in Seattle.
Brown mentioned the litigation was an emergency motion to block federal agencies from fulfilling Trump’s request to outlaw birthright citizenship. A spokesperson for Brown later added that the motion aims to stop the entirety of the enforcement from being ordered.
“On Monday, one man, the President, said that the citizenship of millions of Americans born to immigrants into this country means less,” Brown said in his press conference. “That the children of immigrants born into citizenship don’t have as much value in this country as others — he is wrong.”
On Jan. 23, Brown was presented with an opportunity to argue his case for the first time in a Seattle courtroom. There, he secured a quick victory against the Trump administration.
As Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate, who represented the Trump administration, was making his first round of arguments, U.S District Senior Judge John C. Coughenour countered with several fervorous questions. One of the questions Coughenour asked was if the attorney thought the order was unconstitutional. Shumate admitted he did.
Coughenour granted Brown’s request by temporarily blocking the executive order, stating that the order was “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“I’ve been on the bench for four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one,” Coughenour said. “There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, ‘Where were the judges? Where were the lawyers?’”
While a monumental step for Brown and the plaintiffs, he implied that the effort is far from over. “This is step one,” Brown yielded.
The executive order is set to take place on Feb. 19, giving Brown and the other plaintiffs an ample amount of time to continue building the case. Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson said in a statement that the attorney general will “have full support of [his] administration” as the lawsuit continues.
The Attorney General’s office made clear the ramifications that the executive order would bestow on the children of undocumented immigrants. They argued that if an executive order of this severity were to be enacted in 2022, roughly 7,000 children in Washington State would have been affected by an order of this capacity, because one or both parents were undocumented. If passed under the Trump administration, 150,000 from all states would be denied citizenship yearly. Brown continued, saying the order would both “render them as undocumented at birth” and “render them citizens of no country at all.”
In the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Brown and the other plaintiffs cited the Fourteenth Amendment and how the order goes against it. They noted that the Citizenship Clause was ratified in the aftermath of the 1857 Dred Scott decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that enslaved Black Americans or those who descended from them could not be citizens. The plaintiffs say this amendment also interprets that “all individuals born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are citizens.”
After the hearing, Brown stated even further that the amendment was instituted to “reaffirm what it means to be an American,” which is why this case is vital for the plaintiffs.
California, Massachusetts and other Democratic-led states also filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration as of Jan. 21. The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights advocacy groups filed their own the night before.
