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Judge in Boston to consider latest bid to block Trump’s birthright citizenship order

February 7, 2025

By MICHAEL CASEY

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge in Boston said on Friday he would take under advisement a request from 18 state attorneys general to block President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin was the third federal judge this week to hear arguments in lawsuits seeking to block the order. It was unclear when Sorokin, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, would issue a decision on the request.

The state attorneys general, along with the cities of San Francisco and Washington, asked Sorokin to issue a preliminary injunction.

Two other federal judges blocked Trump’s order earlier in the week — first in Maryland, where a judge issued a nationwide pause on the order in a lawsuit brought by immigrant-rights advocacy groups and a handful of expectant mothers; and then in Seattle, where a judge in a separate lawsuit decried what he described as the administration’s treatment of the Constitution, saying Trump was trying to change it with an executive order.

They argue that the principle of birthright citizenship is “enshrined in the Constitution” and that Trump does not have the authority to issue the order, which they called a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”

They also say Trump’s order would cost states funding they rely on to “provide essential services” — from foster care to health care for low-income children to “early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.”

At the heart of all the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which held that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

Attorneys for the states have argued that it does — and that has been recognized since the amendment’s adoption, notably in an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court decision. That decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.

The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.

Orange County Register

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Judge in Boston to consider latest bid to block Trump’s birthright citizenship order

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