A federal judge in New Hampshire said Thursday that he would block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante greenlit a class-action lawsuit brought last month by the American Civil Liberties Union and others. The organizations filed their suit hours after the Supreme Court limited nationwide injunctions but left a carveout for class-action lawsuits to block the president’s policies from going into effect across the country.
Trump’s Day 1 order limiting birthright citizenship would reverse more than a century of precedent that anyone born on U.S. soil is an American citizen.
Laplante certified the children of undocumented immigrants as a class and said his decision to issue the injunction was “not a close call,” according to The Associated Press.
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“That’s irreparable harm, citizenship alone,” Laplante said in court, according to Reuters. “It is the greatest privilege that exists in the world.”
The Trump administration has launched a crackdown on immigration, and Republican lawmakers allocated an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement in the reconciliation bill.
“Today’s decision is an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s clear order against universal relief. This judge’s decision disregards the rule of law by abusing class action certification procedures. The Trump Administration will be fighting vigorously against the attempts of these rogue district court judges to impede the policies President Trump was elected to implement.,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, told NOTUS.
Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, called the ruling “a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended.”
“We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn’t trample on the citizenship rights of one single child,” added Wofsy, who argued the case.
Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican, told NOTUS he was “very disappointed” in the judge’s ruling. Sen. Markwayne Mullin said he “thought the Supreme Court already answered this question.”
“I think these district judges are overstepping their boundaries way too far on this one. The Supreme Court’s gonna eventually have to step in and slap ’em down,” Mullin added.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NOTUS that the ruling was “good news” and “long overdue.” Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, called it the “right ruling.”
“I think the White House’s position is directly contrary to the plain language of the 14th Amendment,” Kaine told NOTUS.
Sen. Mark Kelly accused the president of wanting to “take our country backwards” by restricting birthright citizenship.
“People who are born in this country should be citizens,” Kelly said. “People, even beyond that, ‘Dreamers,’ should have a pathway to citizenship.”
This story has been updated with a statement from the White House.
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