BOSTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, issuing the third court ruling blocking the birthright order nationwide since a key Supreme Court decision in June. <\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, joining another district court as well as an appellate panel of judges, found that a nationwide injunction granted to more than a dozen states remains in force under an exception to the Supreme Court ruling. That decision restricted the power of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions. <\/p>\n
The states have argued Trump\u2019s birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for health insurance services that are contingent on citizenship status. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation\u2019s highest court<\/a>. <\/p>\n New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who helped lead the lawsuit before Sorokin, said in a statement he was \u201cthrilled the district court again barred President Trump\u2019s flagrantly unconstitutional birthright citizenship order from taking effect anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAmerican-born babies are American, just as they have been at every other time in our Nation\u2019s history,\u201d he added. \u201cThe President cannot change that legal rule with the stroke of a pen.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawyers for the government had argued Sorokin should narrow the reach of his earlier ruling granting a preliminary injunction, saying it should be \u201ctailored to the States\u2019 purported financial injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n Sorokin said a patchwork approach to the birthright order would not protect the states in part because a substantial number of people move between states. He also blasted the Trump administration, saying it had failed to explain how a narrower injunction would work.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is, they have never addressed what renders a proposal feasible or workable, how the defendant agencies might implement it without imposing material administrative or financial burdens on the plaintiffs, or how it squares with other relevant federal statutes,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cIn fact, they have characterized such questions as irrelevant to the task the Court is now undertaking. The defendants\u2019 position in this regard defies both law and logic.\u201d<\/p>\n Sorokin acknowledged his order would not be the last word on birthright citizenship. Trump and his administration \u201care entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,\u201d Sorokin wrote. \u201cBut in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n The administration has not yet appealed any of the recent court rulings. Trump\u2019s efforts to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily will remain blocked unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise.<\/p>\n An email asking for the White House\u2019s response to the ruling was sent Friday.<\/p>\n A federal judge in New Hampshire issued a ruling earlier this month prohibiting Trump\u2019s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire<\/a> had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed in the last week, his order went into effect. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, a San Francisco-based appeals court found<\/a> the president\u2019s executive order unconstitutional and affirmed a lower court\u2019s nationwide block. <\/p>\n A Maryland-based judge said this week that she would do the same if an appeals court signed off. <\/p>\n