SEATTLE (AP) — A second federal judge in two days has blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, decrying what he described as the administration's attempt to ignore the Constitution for political gain.
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle on Thursday put Trump's order on hold for the duration of lawsuits brought by four states and an immigrant rights group challenging it. His ruling followed one by a federal judge in Maryland in a separate but similar case involving immigrants’ rights groups and pregnant women whose soon-to-born children could be affected.
Here’s a closer look at where things stand on the president’s birthright citizenship order.
The president’s executive order seeks to end the automatic grant of citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or who are here on a temporary, but lawful basis such as those on student or tourist visas.
For now, it’s on hold. Two weeks ago, Coughenour issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking its implementation, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Maryland followed that up with an injunction keeping it on hold long-term, until the merits of the case are resolved, barring a successful appeal by the Trump administration.
Following a hearing on Thursday, Coughenour — a Ronald Reagan appointee who has been on the bench since 1980 — issued his own injunction. Trump is simply trying to amend the 14th Amendment — which grants citizenship to those born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction — for political reasons, the judge said.
“The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or something ignored, whether that be for political or personal gain,” Coughenour said. “In this courtroom and under my watch the rule of law is a bright beacon, which I intend to follow.”
Late Thursday the Justice Department appealed his order to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It did not appear that the DOJ had yet appealed the Maryland ruling to the 4th Circuit.
In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action. They say that if it takes effect, it could create an underclass of essentially stateless residents.
The matter before the Seattle judge involves four states: Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington. It has been consolidated with a lawsuit brought by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project on behalf of a proposed class of expectant parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Eighteen states, led by Iowa, filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief supporting the Trump administration’s position in the case.
Another hearing is set for Friday in a Massachusetts court. That case involves a different group of 18 states challenging the order, including New Jersey, which is the lead plaintiff. Yet another challenge, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, goes before a federal judge in New Hampshire on Monday.
At the heart of 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 been brought to a state where slavery was outlawed.
The amendment holds that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration, which has sought to curtail unlawful immigration, has asserted that noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and their children born in the U.S. are not entitled to citizenship.
“The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to ... the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” the government argued in reply to the Maryland plaintiffs’ suit.
The plaintiffs call that ludicrous, noting that illegal immigrants are required to pay taxes and follow the law, and that men ages 18 to 26 who are in the country illegally are still obligated to register for the U.S. Selective Service System, meaning they could be drafted to fight for the U.S. in a war.
“It is patently absurd for defendants to contend that a person who can be conscripted into the military — forced to fight for this country — is not subject to its jurisdiction,” Matt Adams, legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, told Coughenour.
The plain meaning of the 14th Amendment has been recognized since it was ratified, 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.
In 1924, Congress passed a separate law granting birthright citizenship to Native Americans.
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.
Catalini is based in Trenton, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman contributed from Greenbelt, Maryland.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown departs a press availability after a federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship in a case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli authorities released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was detained by the army after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. He said they beat him in front of his home while filming the assault.
Hamdan Ballal and the other directors of “No Other Land,” which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, had mounted the stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles earlier this month when it won the award for best documentary film.
On Tuesday, with bruises on his face and blood on his clothes, he was released from an Israeli police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. He and two other Palestinians who had been attacked and detained were driven to a nearby hospital.
Ballal said he was held at an army base and forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.
“I was blindfolded for 24 hours," he told The Associated Press. “All the night I was freezing. It was a room, I couldn’t see anything... I heard the voice of soldiers laughing about me.”
Lea Tsemel, the attorney representing the three men, said they received only minimal care for their injuries from the attack and that she had no access to them for several hours after their arrest. She had earlier said they were accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.
Palestinian residents say around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms — attacked the West Bank village of Susiya on Monday evening as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones, they said.
The Israeli military said Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lamia Ballal, the director's wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I'm dying!" and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.
“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”
West Bank settlers are often armed and sometimes wear military-style clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from soldiers.
On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside their home, and the car's windshield and windows were shattered. Neighbors pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been punched by the settlers.
Ballal said he was attacked by a well-known settler who had threatened him in the past. The settler can be seen with other masked men in a widely circulated video from August in which they threaten Ballal.
“This is my land, I was given it by God,” the settler says in the video, in which he also uses profanity and tries to get Ballal to fight him. “Next time it won’t be nice," the settler says.
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.
The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened it.
Basel Adra, another of the film's co-directors who is a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, said there’s been a massive upswing in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win.
“Nobody can do anything to stop the pogroms, and soldiers are only there to facilitate and help the attacks,” he said. "We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank ... Nobody’s stopping this.”
Masked settlers with sticks also attacked Jewish activists in the area on Monday, smashing their car windows and slashing tires, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
The Palestinians also face threats from settlers at nearby outposts. Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on behalf of the settlers.
The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out widescale military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Hamdi Ballal, mother of Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian co-director of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", who was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army, looks on in their house in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A man walks near the house of Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", who was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army, in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Basel Adra, Palestinian co-director of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", looks at a damaged car after a settler's attack in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Students walk on a road near the house of Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", who was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Basel Adra, one of the directors of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", speaks on the phone as he sits in an area near the house of Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal, in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Lamia Ballal, wife of Hamdan Ballal, a co-director of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", looks on as she sits at their house in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Basel Adra, Palestinian co-director of the Oscar winner documentary "No Other Land", looks at the damaged car of the Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army in the village of Susiya, in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
