Birth Citizenship: Trump to Appeal Against Stay Order

Even as a US federal judge in Seattle issued a two-week restraining order on US President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order and termed it as "blatantly unconstitutional," Trump said that he was not surprised and would appeal against the judgment.

- Prashant Jha

WASHINGTON:

The order has led to a degree of relief within the Indian diaspora. But this relief is also coupled with a growing realization that the court reprieve is just one step in a larger battle on immigration that may just have begun. On Thursday, in Seattle, a Ronald Reagan-appointed federal judge, John C Coughenour, said that in his 40 years of presiding over cases, he had never seen an order that was so explicitly unconstitutional.

On Day 1 of his presidency, in an executive order, Trump decreed that unless one parent of a child born in America was an American citizen or a green card holder, the child won't be considered an American citizen. The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution states that all those born in the US, and subject to the jurisdiction of the US, are citizens.

Asked about the order, Trump told reporters on Thursday in the Oval Office, "Obviously, we will appeal it. They put it before a certain judge in Seattle, I guess. Right? And there's no surprises with that judge."