Third judge blocks Trump birthright citizenship executive order

A third federal judge indefinitely blocked President Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship, dealing another stark blow to the controversial directive.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante granted the request Monday morning but said a written order setting forth his reasoning would follow in coming days.

“I’m going to grant the injunction,” said Laplante, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, at the conclusion of an hourlong hearing.

“I had a pretty good idea I was going to do that before your arguments, but I wanted to give you the opportunity and ask you a few questions.”

Trump signed the executive order narrowing birthright citizenship on his first day back in the White House. It would limit the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee to exclude children born on U.S. soil to parents without permanent legal status.

The move — one of several immigration actions in the administration’s early days — has already spurred nine lawsuits, which contend that the Supreme Court has long interpreted the constitutional guarantee to include slim exceptions.

Laplante’s order follows similar injunctions granted by federal judges in Seattle and Greenbelt, Md., last week in response to separate legal challenges. A judge in Boston is weighing whether to grant a fourth injunction after hearing arguments Friday.

Laplante, who sits in New Hampshire, on Monday also seemed to address remarks made by the Seattle judge when granting an injunction in that case, when the judge ripped into the president and accused him of circumventing the rule of law.

The Seattle judge, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, called the rule of law “but an impediment” to Trump’s “policy goals.”

“I'm not persuaded by the defendant's arguments in this on this motion — obviously, I'm not granting the injunction,” Laplante said Monday. “But I have to say I'm not offended by them, either, as a lawyer or a jurist.”

The case before Laplante was filed by three civil rights organizations, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants' Rights Project, called Trump’s order a “fundamental attack” on the Constitution at Monday’s hearing.

“It threatens to strip from thousands of U.S.-born babies both their equal membership in this society and to impose on them and families a raft of extremely grave injuries,” Wofsy said.

The Justice Department repeated arguments it has made in other birthright citizenship cases, contending that the children of parents without permanent legal status should be viewed as similarly situated to members of Native American tribes, who are not guaranteed citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

Congress later gave Native Americans citizenship by passing the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, but it is not protected by the Constitution.

“They give you no other construction that is defensible under Supreme Court authority under which they can prevail,” Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said of the plaintiffs’ position.

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